Lancaster Airport officials say they are closer to bringing new airline service to the area than they have been in two decades, with two low-cost airlines showing interest in starting service using jets capable of holding 150 people as soon as the end of this year.
"I've been here 20 years. We've never reached this point with an airline that we are right now," said James Cunningham, chairman of the Lancaster Airport Authority board.
Airport director Ed Foster would not identify the two airlines, or provide a date when they might start service, because neither has signed a letter of intent with the Manheim Township airport.
Foster said he has met with five low-cost carriers in the last 18 months — Allegiant, JetBlue, Spirit, Breeze Airways and Avelo Airlines. None of the airlines would comment on whether their future expansion plans include Lancaster County.
The low-cost carriers all fly direct to airports in vacation destinations like Orlando, Florida, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, using 150-seat aircraft such as Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s. They fly less frequently than the major airlines, usually on a daily or even weekly basis.
Lancaster Airport's only current commercial carrier is Southern Airways Express, which flies small propeller planes to places like Washington and Pittsburgh, and relies on federal funding. A spokesperson for Southern Airways Express said they would welcome another airline in Lancaster.
The airport at 500 Airport Road lost major airline service in 2001. Cunningham said the authority has tried unsuccessfully to get it back ever since.
"We knew that the large airlines were not going to come to Lancaster. Ed has investigated some other opportunities and some of them have responded in a manner that has given us hope," he said.
Foster, who became airport director in 2021, said the area's population and travel habits are attractive to low-cost carriers. The area from which the airport believes it can attract customers — Lancaster County and the southwestern part of Berks County — is home to a combined 850,022 people.
According to data from airport consultant Mead & Hunt, the most popular destination for Lancaster County residents is Orlando. The total number of trips there in 2021, including all forms of transportation, was 91,275, or 250 per day.
Low-cost airlines expanding
Low-cost carriers have been expanding routes from smaller airports at a time when major airlines are cutting them.
In the spring, United announced it was ending flights from Erie, and Delta said it was pulling out of State College — both citing pilot shortages. Johnstown and Latrobe also lost service during the pandemic. Seventy-six percent of airports nationwide have lost some of their airline service since 2020, according to the Regional Airport Association.
Earlier this year, Avelo Airlines added 14 routes to Wilmington Airport in Delaware. Breeze and Allegiant have added routes from western Pennsylvania airports this year.
According to Gareth Edmondson-Jones, a Breeze spokesperson, low-cost carriers have avoided hiring issues in part because they are hiring pilots who took early retirement from major airlines. The wave of retirements has left the major airlines with fewer pilots to fly regional routes, he said, which has hurt smaller airports.
"We are fine on pilots," he said.
Edmondson-Jones said Breeze is constantly looking at adding new routes, but he did not know if Lancaster is part of those plans.
There would be upfront costs involved with bringing in an airline. The airport is looking at expanding its terminal or repurposing unused space, because the existing one doesn't have space for a new tenant, Foster said.
The airport runway is already capable of handling 737s and A320s. Former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence arrived in a 747 and 757, respectively, during the 2020 election campaign.
Some airlines require airports to fund marketing efforts to attract return visitors to new service. Foster has approached local groups including Discover Lancaster, the Lancaster Chamber and the Lancaster County Economic Development Company to help with marketing.
If an airline submits a letter of intent to begin offering service at Lancaster Airport, the authority board would have to accept it at one of its meetings. Airlines aren't required to notify the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation or municipal officials when they start a new route, according to a PennDOT spokesperson. Asked Tuesday about its requirements for new airline routes, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said they were working on a response but did not provide one by press time Wednesday.
Foster said if an airline adds service this year, he would expect it to happen in the fall, when trips to sunbelt destinations begin to pick up. A letter of intent would likely arrive 90 to 120 days before that, he said. If it does not, he plans to continue to push for airline service in the years to come.
"I think we have the population for it, and I think people would definitely use the service, so I'm going to keep pushing for it," Foster said.
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