Word late last year that Lancaster Airport was the third busiest airport in Pennsylvania was a surprise to some. More than 97,000 planes departed and arrived at the airport in 2021. Not many of them were commercial carriers though. That could change.

Low-cost airlines are showing interest in providing service to Lancaster Airport with aircraft that could hold up to 150 passengers.

Ed Foster, Director of Lancaster Airport told us on The Spark Wednesday that's he's met with Allegiant, JetBlue, Breeze Airways, Spirit and Avelo Airlines -- all that expressed interest in Lancaster.

Foster indicated there is a market for commercial air service from Lancaster,"We do what we call air service market studies and we've done them for the last two years. I've been here three years this September, and we know that about 820,000 people a year travel from this area domestically in the United States and then about another 80,000 internationally. So about 900,000 people, total travel from this area out of there, only 10,000 travel from this airport. So a bulk of those, 99% of them are traveling to airports -- 30 miles to 150 miles away."

Destinations could include several in Florida like Orlando and Tampa and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Charleston and Nashville. Foster said fares would be comparable to larger airports and parking would continue to be free.

Some residents who live near Lancaster Airport say they're concerned about noise and their lives being disrupted. Foster said their concerns will be taken into consideration,"I honestly think they would just see a bigger airplane once every two days. These airlines that we've been talking to, the proposals that they say they would like to do is two to four airplanes a week to these destinations. So you would see one airplane every two days and you would have to almost be sitting waiting for it to land to catch it, because it would be inside and landed in 15 seconds and then it would be taken off an hour later after it reloads."

Foster added that he hopes airlines have signed a lease with the airport by late-winter or early spring of next year.

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.