MARTINSBURG — The Altoona-Blair County Airport’s numbers were down across the board, except for La Fiesta, which had a 7% increase in sales from December and a 4% increase year over year, airport manager Tracy Plessinger said.

During the airport authority’s regular meeting Wednesday, Plessinger said there were 11 flight cancellations in January — only one of which was not weather related, he said.

“There’s really nothing the airline can do about that,” Plessinger said of the weather-related cancellations, noting Charlotte had “horrendous ice” one day and 11 inches of snow at another point last month.

“A lot of times it wasn’t on this end, it was on the Charlotte end that things were being canceled,” Plessinger said.

Contour Airlines overall completion rate for January was 91%, Plessinger said. Passenger numbers were down 29% from December and down 9% from January 2025, he said, adding Contour carried 1,293 passengers to/from the airport last month.

Avis/Budget sales for January were down 23% from December and 25% year over year, and Coffee Coop’s sales were down 7% from December, Plessinger said.

Plessinger attributed most of the decline to the winter weather conditions.

“Most of it I think was weather related. I don’t think it’s a trend or anything,” he said.

Even though business was down, Avis/Budget manager Nick Bechtel said January was still a steady month for the airport’s rental vehicle operation, noting the airport sold 111 total rentals in January.

“During January, our focus was on building a core fleet of Avis/Budget Group-owned vehicles, resulting in a lack of one-way availability,” Bechtel said in his report to the board.

With the lack of availability for one-way rentals combined with local reservations being canceled for inclement weather, the airport experienced a decrease in rental volume, he said.

Bechtel said the month of February has had a good start so far, which is promising news for the airport considering February is typically Avis/Budget’s slowest month of the year, he said.

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