As they celebrated record success last year, local airport officials announced new flights Thursday to major hubs that they think could make this year even better.
A record 268,197 passengers departed on jets flying out of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport in 2017, wiping out the former record of 246,543 set in 1990. The 2017 total rose 15 percent from 2016 when 233,244 boarded commercial jets at the airport. The airport set records in every month but February and September, and airport customers filled 89.8 percent of the available seats on jets operated by the airport’s four major 2017 airlines: United, American, Delta and Allegiant.
Adding in arrivals, 531,851 passengers came through airport last year, beating the 1990 record of 491,416.
Beardsley attributed the growth to actively lobbying airlines; airlines using larger jets and adding flights because of demand; and growth in demand fueled partly by New York State travelers and increasing loyalty from local travelers. Two years ago, the airport had only about 13,000 travelers from New York state, but last year it was more than 30,000, according to airport tracking of license plates in its parking garage and lot, he said.
“People are seeing good reasons to use the airport, whether it’s low stress, whether it’s the air service, whether it’s time savings, cost savings,” Beardsley said during an airport board meeting Thursday.
Allegiant pulled out of the airport after Jan. 4, but airport officials think they might top the new annual record because of added flights. On April 3, American Airlines will add a fourth daily flights to Charlotte and Philadelphia. On June 7, American will begin two flights to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. At the moment, United Airlines offers the only flight from the airport to Chicago, a late afternoon one. American’s Chicago flights will depart at 8 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. and use 50-seat jets.
The Charlotte flights will leave at 6:20 a.m., 11:55 a.m., 1:34 p.m. and 6:59 p.m., airport spokesman Eric McKitish said. The Philadelphia flights will depart at 6:05 a.m., 9:49 a.m., 12:05 a.m. and 6:50 p.m.
From April through September alone, airports’ busiest period outside of winter holidays, the airport will have more than more than 32,000 more available outbound seats. If passengers fill 80 percent of them, the airport would have almost 26,000 more boardings in just the six months. Allegiant had 25,737 all of last year.
Allegiant planes flew directly to Orlando and Tampa in Florida, and the airlines withdrawal left the airport with no direct flights to Florida.
Beardsley called restoring Florida service later this year his top priority and said he’s aggressively pursuing other airlines.
“We expect to make more announcements as time goes on,” he said. “We’re seeing some real good opportunities for additional air service. The airlines want to partner with us. They consider this market a solid market to offer service from.”
