MARTINSBURG — The Altoona-Blair County Airport Authority celebrated the airport’s success after achieving a total annual enplanement of over 10,000 passengers in 2025.

During Wednesday’s meeting, airport manager Tracy Plessinger said the airport’s total enplanements for 2025 were 10,536 passengers — the highest that figure has been since 2002.

By enplaning more than 10,000 passengers last year, the airport’s primary entitlement in the Federal Aviation Administration’s airport improvement program will increase more than eight times from $150,000 to $1.3 million, Plessinger said.

Before reaching 10,000 annual enplanements, any project over $150,000 the airport pursued required the airport authority to compete with every other airport in the country for additional Federal Aviation Administration funding, Plessinger said, noting the airport’s primary entitlement is essentially “guaranteed money.”

“Now that our primary entitlement is $1.3 million, we’re not competing with all of those other airports,” Plessinger said. “If we do a $2 million project, we still have to go get more money. But we can do a lot bigger of a project without competing against other airports for that money.”

The next big project on the airport’s drawing board is a rehabilitation of the primary runway, Plessinger said, adding that project will likely cost the airport $3 million or $4 million to complete.

Rehabilitation would include milling the runway down, repaving it and repainting it, Plessinger said.

The airport authority is also in the middle of completing its master plan, Plessinger said, noting the master plan will outline the airport’s future projects for the next 10 or 15 years.

“But the immediate project is rehabilitation of the primary runway,” he said.

Sales were down

In his report to the board, Plessinger said Contour Airlines’ overall completion rate for December 2025 was 93%.

Passenger numbers for December were down 6% from November 2025 and down 6% from December 2024, he said.

Plessinger said Contour carried 1,819 passengers to/from the airport in December.

According to Plessinger, La Fiesta’s sales for December were down 8% from November and down 5% from November 2024; Avis/Budget’s sales for December were down 9% from November and down 10% from December 2024; and Coffee Coop’s sales were down 5% from November.

“It just seemed like everything was down in December. I’m not sure why,” Plessinger said.

Although sales were down, Avis/Budget manager Nick Bechtel said December was “a decent month” for operations. There was a slight uptick in one-way rentals in December, he said.

Bechtel said Aero has been selectively selling off their fleet in preparation for the transition to the Avis/Budget Group-owned fleet after Avis/Budget Group acquired the daily rental portion of Aero in early December.

“Thankfully to this point, we have not experienced any major disruptions and have been able to fulfill all reservations,” Bechtel said, noting he expects a brief pause in outbound one-way rental availability during the transition period.

Information of the transition specifics are scarce, Bechtel said, adding it seems that a few key people in Aero will remain after the transition to Avis/Budget Group, which he said is “great” for the airport.

“As of now, it appears that we will not experience any major changes aside from our vehicles no longer being provided by Aero,” Bechtel said.

Board reorganizes

Prior to the airport authority’s regular meeting, the board held a reorganization meeting, which saw board members Mike Ritchey and Drew Swope swap positions.

Swope is now the board’s chairman and Ritchey is the vice chairman.

According to Plessinger, the board chairman typically serves a two-year term and Ritchey had fulfilled his term as chairman.

Secretary Adam Ward, treasurer Seth Smith and solicitor Dan Stants were reappointed to fill their positions.

The next airport authority meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11, at the airport.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.