Flights from Purdue to Florida? $25.3M terminal plan aims for return of commercial airlines
Plus, vaccine boosters ready at Tippecanoe County Health Department. And can Purdue persuade students to cool the language in football chants?
Last seen at the Purdue Airport, commercial passenger airline service was petering out with a Valentine’s Day 2004 flight by AmericanConnection to St. Louis’s Lambert Field in the morning and a return to the terminal in West Lafayette that afternoon, ending the firm’s 14-month run.
AmericanConnection started offering twice-daily service out of the Purdue Airport in December 2002, the 12th company since 1965 to give it a go out of a field touted as the second-busiest airport in Indiana, according to accounts at the time by late, great J&C reporter Max Showalter. The community, working to prop up commercial flights through much of the ‘80s and ‘90s, had put $100,000 into incentives to get travelers to use the new service. But strong initial sales slipped by 68% between the first December in West Lafayette and the second. AmericanConnection pulled the plug.
No one else has tried since.
Purdue officials are ready to test that market again.
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