The effort to attract a new commercial airline to Arnold Palmer Regional Airport could rely on federal funding.
Westmoreland County Airport Authority Executive Director Maurice Haas said Wednesday the primary option to replace Spirit Airlines at the Unity facility rests with a U.S. Department of Transportation program that offers revenue guarantees to commercial carriers.
“This is basically our best shot,” Haas said of the authority’s application, submitted earlier this month, to the agency’s Small Community Air Service Development Program. The program provides funding to rural airports to help them replace lost service.
The federal agency recently announced it has made $12 million in funding available to local airports as part of the program. According to the agency’s website, grants range from $20,000 to $1.6 million. The last funding round in October 2024 saw grants awarded to 14 airports throughout the United States, with most of those awards totaling $1 million.
The money is used to guarantee revenue for airlines that agree to launch commercial service at small airports that recently lost it. The funding ensures airlines meet passenger thresholds that could enable them to break even for up to three years of service at a new airport.
Haas said it is an incentive officials anticipate could lure another low-cost carrier to fly out of Palmer airport, which was left without a commercial airline after Spirit Airlines shuttered operations in April. Spirit had served as the airport’s lone commercial carrier since 2011, operating as many as a dozen weekly flights to multiple destinations from Westmoreland County during peak travel periods.
It most recently flew routes from Palmer airport to Orlando and had restarted seasonal flights to Myrtle Beach, S.C., just prior to the airline’s closure. In past years, the airline also flew routes from Palmer to Las Vegas, Dallas and Florida cities including Tampa, Fort Myers and Fort Lauderdale.
Layoffs, terminal delays
With no current commercial service on the books, the airport authority earlier this month laid off 25 employees who served as ticket and reservation agents and baggage handlers. Also this month, the Transportation Security Administration gave the authority a 90-day notice it will pull security agents out of the airport.
Meanwhile, the final stages of a $22 million project, funded through federal grants, are nearing completion to double the size of the Palmer airport’s passenger terminal. Originally expected to open in June, Haas said that without commercial flights scheduled, officials have yet to decide when to officially unveil the expanded facility.
Local officials are hopeful the federal grant is the lever needed to attract a new carrier and show off the expanded terminal.
“We’re at a critical point, and I hope these grants come out sooner rather than later,” Haas said.
He declined to discuss specifics in the county’s application for the federal funding but said it includes requests to replace service to the same destinations served by Spirit. The application included a letter of interest from an unnamed airline, Haas said, though he declined to name the carrier.
Salisbury success
That same federal grant program was used to bolster commercial travel that started last year from a small airport in rural Maryland. Salisbury Regional Airport, located about 120 miles from Baltimore and Washington, D.C., received an $800,000 grant to entice Breeze Airways to launch nonstop service to Orlando for two years.
The Salisbury airport served as a commuter feeder to airports in Charlotte and Philadelphia but was looking to expand its footprint, according to manager Tony Rudy.
Rudy said local officials had for years talked with Breeze, but it was not until the airport was awarded the federal grant to guarantee revenue that the airline agreed to launch nonstop service to Florida. What started out last fall as two weekly flights to Orlando increased earlier this year to three, and the airline will begin flying to Fort Lauderdale this summer.
“Without that grant, they may not have taken the risk. It worked out well for us,” Rudy said.
Westmoreland officials are hoping for a similar outcome to reinvigorate an airport that a decade ago hit an all-time high in passenger traffic.
Passenger totals reached a peak of nearly 356,000 in 2015 but decreased over the years amid flight cuts and travel restrictions related to the covid pandemic. Just more than 119,000 passengers flew to and from Palmer airport in 2025.
Over the past month, just a handful of passengers booked on charter flights passed through the gates, while private air travel and a flight school continue to operate at Palmer airport.
Still, commercial service remains a top priority.
“We are hoping for anything,” Haas said.