Editorial: Arnold Palmer Regional Airport needs real plans to grow business
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Why is Arnold Palmer Regional Airport losing money?
The Unity airport is a small alternative in Westmoreland County. If you don’t want to brave the parkway and negotiate the sometimes intimidating scope of Pittsburgh International Airport, Arnold Palmer might be a less stressful alternative.
The problem? Options.
To fly out of Arnold Palmer, you have to be willing to fly Spirit Airlines, which means if you have any other loyalty programs, you are out of luck.
You also have to have a short list of locations you want to visit. Orlando? Great. Myrtle Beach? Fine. New York or Chicago or Las Vegas? Not going to work.
You need to not be in a hurry. Flights aren’t happening every day — at least not right now. If you want to head south on a Thursday or Friday, that will work. If you need to make a reservation for a Tuesday morning, you need to make other arrangements.
And flying out of a regional airport often comes with a cost. Check travel apps and you can find a flight from Pittsburgh to Orlando as cheap as $46 if you are willing to jump through some hoops. The lowest price from Arnold Palmer is $175.
All of those can come together to explain why only Erie and State College have regional, commercial nonprimary airports with fewer yearly passengers than Arnold Palmer. Erie International is fewer than 100,000. State College has about 135,000 — but that might change if Penn State football coach James Franklin gets his way and the airport starts accommodating larger planes.
Harrisburg International (1.3 million passengers in 2024), Lehigh Valley in Allentown (930,000) and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (313,000) all dwarf Arnold Palmer’s 145,000 passengers.
Those low numbers translate to a lot of red ink — and a lot of money put into the airport by the county. In 2024, Arnold Palmer lost $600,000. Losses right now are about $15,000 per month. If that holds steady, those would total $180,000 for 2025.
“The way Spirit is operating right now is difficult for us. We are making money off them, but real soon we need at least two more flights a day to make money,” airport authority Executive Director Gabe Monzo said. “We’re bleeding right now.”
If the airport is bleeding, is it really making money off Spirit? Either way, why isn’t the authority taking more steps to draw other carriers or alternative revenue sources?
The common factor for those regional airports that see more traffic? They all have more airlines.
Harrisburg offers flights from Allegiant, American, American Eagle Delta, Delta Connection, Frontier, United and United Express. Lehigh Valley has Allegiant, American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton hosts American, Breeze and United Express. They also all embrace relationships with large cargo shippers like FedEx and UPS.
A $22 million terminal overhaul project is underway, but that has an “if you build it, they will come” kind of impression. Creating a great airport isn’t the same thing as recruiting the businesses that will support it.
“My goal is to keep the airport an important economic driver for our county,” said Westmoreland County Commissioner Ted Kopas. “For 15 years I’ve supported this investment.”
Kopas is right about the $200 million impact the airport has and the potential for it to grow and develop the county’s economic engine.
But in addition to having architectural plans for the building, the authority needs to have real plans to build the business of Arnold Palmer. Without that, the $22 million is just pouring into the existing pot of red ink.