Airport Holds First Town Hall

By SOFIA RUBINSON Sun Managing Editor

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, airline travel demand is back — but airports are still recovering. Like many airports across the country, the Ithaca Tompkins International Airport is facing widespread issues, like the national pilot shortage, in addition to regional problems.

On Wednesday, airport leadership hosted the first-ever Ithaca airport town hall to discuss these problems and implementation of potential solutions.

“In the United States, passengers fell 97 percent from 2.5 million to under 100,000. So we’re trying to build that back,” said ITH Airport Director Roxan Noble. “This is hard. This isn’t going to be easy. It’s not something that can happen overnight. We’re working to not only increase our relationships with our current airline partners, but talk to new airlines, getting the information out of why [to fly] Ithaca.”

Despite the loss of American Airlines in September, airport leaders said at Wednesday’s town hall that their plan for 2023 is to keep pushing forward and encourage the local community to fly Ithaca.

Matthew Colbert ’09, ITH’s air service development consultant and the founder and principal consultant of Empire Aviation Services, said the Ithaca airport was able to recover from the surge in passenger demand in 2020 due to the structure of Ithaca’s market.