Construction crews are finishing a $27 million, 75,000-square-foot expansion of Atlantic City International Airport that will add new gates and a federal inspection station for international flights and expand the baggage-claim area.
Plans are under way for a $40 million connector road to better link the airport to the Atlantic City Expressway by 2016. A new parking garage has been built, and a contract has been awarded for a hotel adjacent to the airport, although construction has not begun.
For all the activity, though, the nagging question remains: Are there passengers to fill the seats to lure the airlines to use the airport?
New Jersey officials, including Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester), are trying to interest the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in taking over operation of the Atlantic City airport.
“If we could get the Port Authority to basically adopt it, we could use the strength of the Port Authority to strengthen the Atlantic City airport,” Sweeney said. “We need them to leverage something for us.”
“We’re trying to create and grow an airport,” Sweeney said. “They do a great job, but they don’t have the resources.”
A spokesman for the Port Authority declined to comment on the prospect of assuming control of the Atlantic City airport.
Only one regularly scheduled carrier, low-cost Spirit Airlines, serves Atlantic City, with flights to several Florida cities and, during spring and summer, to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and Detroit.
AirTran Airways pulled out of Atlantic City in January, several months after subsidy payments from the airport operator ended. Since 2000, U.S. Airways, Delta, Continental and West Jet also have halted service to Atlantic City, citing unprofitability.
And, despite its name, Atlantic City International has no scheduled international service.
The airport operates at a deficit, subsidized by tolls from motorists on the Atlantic City Expressway. For 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, the subsidy was $3.2 million.
The two top officials in charge of the airport are leaving: Bart Mueller, executive director of the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which operates the expressway and the airport, has resigned, effective July 1; and longtime airport director Thomas Rafter is leaving May 31 to become manager of Nantucket Memorial Airport in Massachusetts.
Source: http://articles.philly.com
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