It was just one year ago when Arnold Palmer Regional Airport officials hosted a party inside the soon-to-be-replaced terminal in Unity.
They celebrated its busiest days in years as hundreds of passengers passed through the gate headed out on flights to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale in Florida and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.
On Monday, that same terminal was eerily quiet. Ticket counters and reservation desks were empty. Transportation Security Administration lines were closed.
The airport, which has seen 3.3 million passengers since 2011, saw no travelers Monday following the sudden shutdown of Spirit Airlines, its lone commercial carrier.
Local officials said Monday that Spirit’s demise could have a devastating financial impact on the facility, which for now has just a handful of charter flights on its schedule even as a $22 million terminal expansion is set to open next month.
“We’re disappointed,” said Westmoreland County Airport Authority Executive Director Maurice Haas. “We want to have an airline here. We have people who want to fly out of our airport.”
Haas spent much of the day in meetings to discuss the airport’s future. The immediate focus is on the staff of more than 50 employees who worked as ticket agents, baggage handlers, reservation takers and tarmac crews.
There will be layoffs.
“We’re evaluating our workforce, and there will be reductions,” Haas said.
The airport authority provided much of the staffing for Spirit through annual subsidies from Westmoreland County. The county gives the airport nearly $2.6 million each year. More than $1.7 million of the subsidy covers general airport operation. Another $879,000 is used to pay off existing debt.
Those subsidies are paid incrementally, with operating funds delivered to the authority quarterly. The first payment of $427,675 was made in March. Payments are scheduled for June, September and the end of the year.
“Those (future) payments are under review,” said Westmoreland County Airport Commissioner Ted Kopas. “We’re waiting for the folks from the airport to finalize new staffing levels under these new conditions. Our (allocation) will reflect the reality.”
The reality is Palmer airport is without a commercial carrier for the first time since 2011, when Spirit began operations in Westmoreland County.
The airport continues to operate with private service and has two charter flights on the flight schedule each month throughout the spring and summer to destinations including Biloxi, Miss.; Atlantic City, N.J.; and Reno, Nev.
The loss of daily commercial flights will cut into the authority’s $5.1 million budget. Spirit paid the authority $750 for each flight that landed at Palmer airport. The airline operated more than two dozen flights from Westmoreland County in April.
Its last flight took off from Palmer airport on Friday.
Haas said TSA calculated that 980 travelers had passed through since April 19. It was unclear how many travelers were stranded and unable to fly back to Westmoreland County following Spirit’s shutdown, Haas said.
Meanwhile, officials are hopeful another carrier can be found to replace Spirit.
Talks with other airlines to operate flights from the Westmoreland airport were held earlier this year. No deals are imminent, according to Haas.
Commissioner Doug Chew, in a statement issued Monday by text message, said airport officials have engaged in talks with two prospective airlines.
“At this time, with the airport in talks with two separate airlines over service offerings at Latrobe, it is premature to begin to assess their current budget allotment. That being said, we must follow the situation closely to see if a retraction of funds is necessary,” Chew said.
Spirit’s shuttering comes as local officials continue to prepare for the opening of the airport’s expanded terminal. The first phase of the $22 million project to double the size of the passenger terminal is still on course to be completed in June. The 32,000-square-foot expansion will eventually include a second passenger gate and leased retail space.
Authority officials had hoped to lease space in the expanded terminal prior to its June opening. Finding businesses such as a food service provider and newsstand to rent retail space at an airport without a flight schedule could prove difficult.
“We’re still working to get everything prepared, but now we may have to put some things on the back burner,” Haas said.