American Airlines to leave Ithaca airport; locals push back

Late last month, American Airlines announced that it will be ending services to the Ithaca Tompkins International Airport (ITH) and flights to Islip, New York, and Toledo, Ohio, effective Sept. 6. But airport leadership isn’t accepting the news without pushing back.

Citing American’s long history in Ithaca and the importance of the airline for the area, airport leadership is actively working to retain American services and convince the company to reverse its decision. Airport Director Roxan Noble spoke with Tompkins Weekly regarding the announcement and staff’s plans to combat it.

As Noble explained, the airport got the call regarding American’s decision around June 17, and Noble immediately said, “We’re not going to give up without a fight.”

“We believe in American Airlines,” she told Tompkins Weekly. “We believe in the airport. We believe in our market and our community. We’re a resilient market.”

Noble decided to recruit some help to try to appeal to American leadership.

“Immediately, I started reaching out to everybody that I could think of from Cornell University, Ithaca College, the County Legislature, the county administrator, our Air Service Board — they have some great connections — and just started making phone calls, sending emails, from anybody, any connections that we had within American Airlines, reaching out to Sen. Schumer,

Sen. Gillibrand, people reaching out to the governor’s office, in support of trying to get American Airlines to reverse their decision, to remain in Ithaca,” she said.

Upon hearing about Noble’s and others’ efforts, American said that, so far, Ithaca is the only airport that has really pushed back against the airline removing services, which Noble said was “a positive.”

“People are looking,” she said. “People are interested within American Airlines. So, it’s still not over; we’re still working hard to get them to stay.”

In its announcement, American cited regional pilot shortages as the main reason for pulling service, saying that there essentially aren’t enough pilots for their current flight lineup. Despite that, as Noble explained in a press release shortly after American’s announcement, there is still significant demand for American’s flights.

“ITH has continued to outperform other airports with planes at over 80% full, making it a very attractive market for additional service,” she said in the release.

Noble elaborated further with Tompkins Weekly, explaining the benefits to American Airlines staying in Ithaca.

“There’s multiple reasons, so not only just the service provided to the community, to the college students, to the faculty, to families, to businesses — it’s crucial for that,” she said. “It’s part of the airport budget. They provide funding to cover the airport’s costs, and so, it would be an initial loss of revenue. So, [we’re] trying to reverse that to make sure that we can still operate here in Ithaca fully. And so, also, they probably have about 30 to 40% of the market of our employments, just depending on the month and what’s happening. So, that’s a lot of people.”

Other locals have also voiced their concern over American’s announcement and support for the airport’s efforts to push back.

“Everybody’s very supportive [of us],” Noble said. “We’ve had businesses that, they’ve been very supportive wanting to keep American Airlines here, local community leaders, just a lot of backing and a lot of support, which has been great.”

While Noble and area stakeholders continue talks with American, they also recognize that the airline’s decision could very well be permanent. In that case, Noble said she and other airport staff have a backup plan.

“If it ends up being permanent, I’m also trying to look on the positive side,” she said. “So, we have currently Delta and United here. We’ve been putting together and working with them and building relationships and getting them to increase their service pre-pandemic, all three of the current airlines, as well as looking at new service. If American, [because of] pilot shortage, can’t return to Ithaca or stay in Ithaca, what we are going to do is then provide the additional opportunities [to] Delta and United.”

County Administrator Lisa Holmes praised the airport’s adaptability to this situation in a recent press release.

“While we are disappointed by American Airlines’ decision, we recognize the great opportunity this also provides us to attract new and additional service to our community,” she said. “Ithaca and Tompkins County harbor a strong economy, which positions our airport very favorably amongst the traveling public in addition to the business community. I would like to thank the ITH team and stakeholders for continuing to seek additional airline service for our area.”

Aside from talks with American, there’s plenty more on the airport’s plate right now, Noble said. For one, staff are still working to fully recover from the pandemic.

“We haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels as quickly as we were hoping,” she said. “But that seems to be across the board with all regional carriers. There’s the national pilot shortage for regional carriers. And so, that’s been a struggle. Our flights haven’t [completely] returned, but we’re working on it. We have the capacity in Ithaca, so that’s something that we’re just building on.”

Noble cited other, more positive, recent developments, like the airport’s recent annual inspection by the Federal Aviation Administration — where it celebrated its third year in a row with zero discrepancies found — and the continued success of The Legacy (see tinyurl.com/22s5dtvz).

“We’re a strong airport,” Noble said. “We not only have our airlines, but we have a large general aviation group here, Taughannock Aviation, so we not only operate that, but we have East Hill Flying Club. They provide flight training for pilots, individuals — you can become a pilot. So, there’s a lot of other activities than just the airlines. And so, sometimes people don’t realize that there’s a lot happening on the airport other than just going to the terminal and taking a flight.”

Visit flyithaca.com for more information about the Ithaca airport.

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to them at editorial@VizellaMedia.com.