America's smallest airports are hurting, even as more people than ever are flying

24.04.2024 - 14:11 / thepointsguy.com

In many respects, 2023 was a record-setting year at airports. The Transportation Security Administration saw its busiest summer ever. All-time, single-day passenger traffic records fell on two occasions. Airlines fielded historic demand for overseas travel, prompting carriers to shift their schedules to meet an enduring craving for travel.

By all accounts, 2024 will be more of the same.

But it remains a very different story at many of America's smallest airports.

Nearly four years after the pandemic shuttered air travel and helped precipitate a pilot shortage that had been brewing for years, travelers in many rural and midsize communities have far fewer flight options than they did before March 2020.

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Take Williamsport, Pennsylvania, as an example: To get to the nearest major hub, you have to drive three hours to Philadelphia.

Before the pandemic, there was no need for the trek. You could just fly out of Williamsport Regional Airport (IPT).

Sure, you'd have to make a connection at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), but with that one stop, you could easily be on your way to the West Coast, Europe or elsewhere.

But those days are long gone. Today, no major carrier flies out of IPT ... and it's been that way there — and at far too many other airports across the country — for a few years now.

After some back-and-forth at the height of the pandemic, American Airlines — then Williamsport's only major airline — decided in 2020 to drop service at IPT for good, citing pandemic-era head winds.

That left the airport with no commercial service.

"It was a long two years trying to figure out what we could do next," Richard Howell, IPT's executive director, acknowledged in a recent interview with TPG.

Howell ran into dead ends as he tried to lure an airline back to the city. A key challenge: Others were trying to do the same.

Since 2020, airlines have exited at least 121 markets nationwide, according to the Regional Airline Association, which advocates for regional carriers — including smaller airlines like SkyWest Airlines, PSA Airlines, Republic Airways and Horizon Air — that feed into larger network carriers and fly between big hubs and smaller communities under names like American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express.

As TPG has reported for two years, regional carriers were hit especially hard by the nationwide pilot shortage. When travel ramped back up after the down days of the pandemic, the big "mainline" airlines went on hiring sprees, replenishing their ranks after offering pilots buyouts and early retirements in 2020.

When they hired, they often hired away from the regional carriers, where many pilots begin