SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Allegiant Air plans to add a direct flight from Syracuse Hancock International Airport to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. twice a week, starting Feb. 13.
It’s the third direct flight that Allegiant offers from Hancock Airport. The other two fly to Myrtle Beach, S.C. and Clearwater, Fla.
The Syracuse Regional Airport Authority made the announcement in a news release Wednesday.
Allegiant will schedule the flights to Fort Lauderdale twice a week on Fridays and Mondays, the authority said.
“We have invested a great deal in the airport and seen tremendous results, from the addition of new, low-cost carriers to the opening of a $60 million expansion,” Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner said in the news release.
To help attract the flight, Hancock Airport offered Allegiant Air an incentive of $100,000 in funding from the $500,000 Small Community Air Service Development grant that the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2010 awarded Hancock Airport to help attract more airlines, Christina Callahan, the airport’s executive director, said in response to an email inquiry from the Business Journal News Network.
Hancock is also offering a $63,000 landing-fee credit; $103,000 commons-area fee credit; and a $33,000 facilities-use-fee credit.
The facility also used grant incentives to attract other Allegiant flights.
Allegiant Air received a federal grant of $100,000 to help it offer nonstop flights from Syracuse to Myrtle Beach, S.C. Those flights started in late May. That funding came from the same grant program.
The airline also received a $690,000 grant in 2013 when it started offering twice-weekly service between Syracuse and the St. Petersburg–Clearwater International Airport in Clearwater, Fla.
Syracuse needs to provide such incentives to airlines to compete with other Upstate airports in attracting air service, Callahan has said in the past.
The grants will eventually run out and the air routes still have to be successful on their own from a business perspective, she added.
Allegiant Air is a unit of Allegiant Travel Company (NASDAQ: ALGT).
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
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