Financial losses expected as Westmoreland airport braces for flight cuts

Westmoreland County’s Airport Authority is eyeing red ink in the coming months.

Reductions to the flight schedule for the airport’s lone commercial carrier and the county’s decision to freeze monthly subsidy payments could substantially limit the authority’s revenue projections during the last quarter of 2025.

“We’re prepared for it,” Gabe Monzo, the authority’s executive director, said of what is expected to be period of declining revenue. “We have enough cash flow. We did some layoffs last winter, and, because of the schedule we have now, we don’t think we have to do layoffs this year.”

Monzo said the authority has enough money in reserve to operate normally through the end of the year.

Throughout the first quarter of 2024, the airport had on average about four flights a week, a figure that resulted in $15,000 monthly operating losses.

The airport authority cut about half of its staff last winter after Spirit Airlines, amid bankruptcy proceedings, reduced service from the Unity airport to several flights a week to one destination — Orlando, Fla.

Spirit emerged from bankruptcy this year and initially increased its flight schedule from Westmoreland County, operating more trips to Orlando as well as adding daily flights to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and twice weekly flights to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Spirit again filed for bankruptcy last month, and in doing so announced a series of new service cuts throughout its system including halting some flights to and from Palmer airport. The airline’s seasonal service to Myrtle Beach is set for hiatus in November.

The airline also reduced its schedule in October to four weekly flights to Orlando but will expand service next month to include six trips a week to the popular Florida destination, Monzo said.

Officials said they continue to plan for Myrtle Beach service to resume early next year.

Total passengers dropping

Spirit’s bankruptcy struggles and the reduced flight schedule has resulted in fewer passengers who passed through the airport’s gates this year. Through September, just fewer than 99,000 passengers traveled through Westmoreland County on Spirit. If current trends continue, it would be the fewest commercial travelers to fly out of the airport since 2011.

Efforts to attract additional carriers to Westmoreland County’s airport have been unsuccessful. Monzo said he continues to view Spirit’s revised schedule as encouraging.

“The fact that they’re still here is a good sign,” Monzo said.

Still, financial hardships are approaching, he conceded. Fewer flights means reduced revenue.

Spirit pays the airport authority $750 for each landing. In 2024, Spirit paid about $700,000 in landing fees to the airport authority, a significant revenue stream for the agency that carries a $5 million annual budget.

The authority, at least for now, will also have less cash for operations because of the county’s subsidy freeze.

Westmoreland County allocates $2.6 million annually to cover personnel costs for baggage handlers and other flight operations staff. The Westmoreland commissioners starting this month froze $125,000 in monthly subsidies to the airport authority as part of cost-saving measures imposed amid the ongoing state budget impasse.

Meanwhile, the authority is looking to increase revenues. On Tuesday, its board approved a contract in which a private company will install an automated system to track landings at no cost. The authority will be paid through a portion of fees it collects. It’s a system officials said could generate at least $10,000 a year in additional revenue for the authority and replaces a less-reliable manual tracking of aircraft landings.

The automated system is expected to be installed in January.

The authority also is exploring installation of solar panels on a roof built over about 300 parking spaces in the airport’s short-term lot in front of the passenger terminal. While most parking at the airport is free, use of the short-term lot costs $10 a night.

Officials said proposals from energy companies will be sought as part of a plan to raise additional revenue and lower electricity costs. Solar panels would be used to generate power that services the new terminal building, a $22 million expansion project to add 32,000 square feet and an additional gate that is expected to ready for passengers in March.

“It’s definitely an interesting project,” authority board member Rich Pologrutto said.