Grant speeds up airline negotiations at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport
UNITY TOWNSHIP, Pa. —
After this weekend, officials at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport have what they need to bring in a new commercial airline.
An $850,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation was awarded to the facility.
“This is a great time for this grant to be awarded,” Westmoreland County Airport Authority executive director Moe Haas said on Monday. “This is the first stepping stone in establishing air service back to Arnold Palmer Airport.”
The federal money is meant to bring revenue guarantees to a commercial carrier –specifically, one that can fly nonstop at a low cost to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and multiple Florida destinations.
“They don’t come in for free,” Haas said. “With what the world is like now, they need backup money to help them start and get rolling. Now, the negotiations can start from different airlines to provide us services.”
However, it could be a while before those flights get off the ground.
“Once we finalize, it’ll probably be towards the beginning of next year [before we fly],” Haas said. “TSA will have to get reestablished once we get the timeframe on when they want to start service back up.
Part of the reason it could take around six more months for the flights to start is getting acclimated to the new terminal expansion.
“We’re getting everything prepared,” Haas said. “We’ll hopefully get some new TSA equipment in. It’ll be a little while until we get everything processed in and get them established so we can start running passengers back through.”
While the new terminal doubles the occupancy of the airport, only one airline is expected to come in with this grant.
“We want to get a service established, and then we’ll go from there,” Haas said. “We want to crawl before we can walk.”
The grant was positive not just for airport officials, but for other county leaders.
“It’s a really important milestone that we reached,” county commissioner Ted Kopas said. “It’s a really big economic driver. The airport, when operating fully, contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to our county’s economy every year. It makes those negotiations much more important and serious.”
While Haas wouldn’t specify which airlines he will negotiate with, he anticipates letting that cat out of the bag in the near future.
“It’s very soon,” he said. “It’s been some tough times, but you always try to think positive. We’ll have nothing but good things coming in the future.”
The airport could also regain its public casino charter service once the Transportation Security Administration is back up and running inside the airport.