Frontier Airlines gear up to announce expansion plans at Trenton Mercer Airport (KTTN), Trenton, New Jersey

EWING — While Frontier Airlines won’t make its inaugural flight from the Trenton-Mercer Airport to Orlando, Fla., until Friday, officials are already gearing up to announce plans to further expand the airline’s operations out of the county-owned airport.
 
Frontier executives and Mercer County officials are expected to announce expansion plans for the airline this morning, according to a media advisory. County spokeswoman Julie Willmot declined to provide further details on today’s announcement.

Frontier, a Denver-based discount carrier, revealed in August it would begin running twice-weekly nonstop flights out of Trenton-Mercer to Orlando in a bid to tap into the local vacation market. A 138-seat Airbus 319 aircraft would fly in and out of the airport on Mondays and Fridays.

Local officials are banking on the success of Frontier after 14 other commercial airlines have come and gone from the county airport since 1983. Shortly after Frontier announced its Florida service, executives at Massachusetts-based Streamline Airways said they were ending the carrier’s weekdays flights to the Boston area because the route was not profitable despite fairly brisk sales.

At a presentation before county freeholders last month, Robert Ashcroft, Frontier’s senior vice president for finance said he believed the airline would succeed at Trenton-Mercer where so many others had failed.

“We are here at the right time, with the right plane and the right strategy,” he said, noting ticket sales were already strong.

Freeholders approved entering into a two-year contract with Frontier at the meeting. Under the agreement, Frontier will pay $18,558 in fixed rent for terminal space, and pay fees for use of the airport’s runways and other infrastructure. The county could see as much as $270,000 in annual revenue if Frontier operates its estimated 104 flights per year. 

Story:  http://www.nj.com