LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa. – Ever go to catch a flight at ABE only to end up at the end of the overflow lot because the long-term lot is packed?<\/p>\n
It’s a common problem as last year ABE had 1,067,000 passengers come through its doors.<\/p>\n
Airport Authority officials say while they anticipate passenger numbers will continue to break records in the future, parking will soon be less of an issue thanks to a new parking structure.<\/p>\n
“This is, you know, over a $50 million project for sure, when you look at the walkway, the five-level parking structure. So, there’s a lot of investment, certainly, to bring this project to ABE,” said Thomas Stoudt, Executive Director of Lehigh Northampton Airport Authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The new parking structure will be built right across from the main terminal and will create 1000 additional parking spaces with a covered, climate-controlled walkway to ticket counters and security.<\/p>\n
Part of the project was made possible thanks to a $2 million grant secured by Congressman Ryan Mackenzie.<\/p>\n
Those funds will be used for elevators and escalators.<\/p>\n
Mackenzie says when completed, the project will make ABE an even more popular alternative to Philly and Newark Airports.<\/p>\n
“You can more much more easily and quickly get from parking to your plane, get on your travel, and obviously a lot of new routes that are coming through ABE here. So, we just want to continue to expand and grow on what is an already successful airport,” said Mackenzie.<\/p>\n
Construction on the parking deck is set to being in the fall.<\/p>\n
Airport officials say it’s just the latest upgrade, later this year construction on an onsite Marriott Hotel is expected to be complete.<\/p>\n
American Airlines just announced a route to Chicago.<\/p>\n
And a possible merger between Allegiant and Sun Country Airlines could result in even more routes at ABE.<\/p>\n
Currently, Sun Country flies to several international destinations like Canada, Mexico and Cozumel.<\/p>\n
The merger is subject to federal approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa. – Ever go to catch a flight at ABE only to end up at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[56197,56200,42866,119,121,120,25831,56202,3767,56201,56198,56199,42867],"class_list":["post-118491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-abe","tag-airport-expansion","tag-allegiant","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-american-airlines","tag-chicago-route","tag-lehigh-valley-international-airport","tag-marriott-hotel","tag-parking-structure","tag-passenger-growth","tag-sun-country-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}