The bright purple airplane landing at PIT on Friday inaugurates year-round, nonstop service to Reykjavik, Iceland. It’s just one of several new destinations added to the airport this year.
While Pittsburgh will never be the hub it was throughout the 1990s, the goal is to make it really work for the region, said Alyson Walls, airport communications manager.
“What we are working on being is a top origin and destination airport,” she said. “Most of the people traveling in and out of our airport are from Pittsburgh and the greater Pittsburgh region. We need to have the service and the flights that the local people want and need to travel to.”
Which is part of the reason a lot of Florida destinations are popping up this year: Spirit Airlines will add options for Fort Myers and Tampa in the fall. But even sooner than that, they plan to fly Pittsburghers to Orlando, Las Vegas, Houston and Los Angeles.
But flying is for far more than just leisure.
“Air service drives business and development in the area,” said Walls. “It’s important for people to be able to come here for conferences and workshops from all around the country, and if they have a nonstop flight to do that it makes it so much easier.”
Pittsburgh International Airport has nearly doubled its nonstop destinations in two years, from 37 to 68. Next week, Condor Airlines will begin offering service to Frankfurt, Germany. OneJet has added flights to and from Albany and Milwaukee.
Eight million people passed through the airport last year, its best since 2013. From April 2016 to April 2017, traffic through the airport increased 11 percent.
(Photo via PIZW / Flickr)
