Airport Authority discusses bringing new commercial flights to St. Johns County

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The Northeast Florida Regional Airport in St. Augustine could welcome a new commercial airline as soon as June.

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Action News Jax’s Emily Turner was at the St. Johns County Airport Authority meeting today, and although the final decision hasn’t been made, there is a big push to make it happen.

That would mean the commercial terminal could once again see passengers, but residents will have to wait and see. The board was supposed to make a decision in the meeting about contracting Avelo Airways, an ultra-low-cost carrier, but instead, they voted to delay that, saying they haven’t had long enough to consider the information.

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The deal presented would be nine flights a week going to three cities: Raleigh/Durham, Wilmington, Delaware and New Haven, Connecticut.

“Bringing a new airline to this destination would be wonderful for our community,” said Susan Phillips with the St. Johns County Visitors and Convention Bureau, “Not only for tourists, it would bring here folks who want to stay longer, spend more money, but also for our community. This allows us to go visit our family and friends, and if you look at three markets, this new airline is looking to propose to us their huge markets from a tourism perspective. It can only help us get better in St. Johns County.”

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Avelos Airways would not be the first commercial airline to fly into St. Augustine. Skybus, Frontier, Via and Elite Airways all started service but quit. Turner asked the director why that may be. He said those reasons had mostly to do with the economics at the time.

The board has two meetings in March where it will try and hammer out the details of this deal, but there are no guarantees. It’s a debate that may spark fireworks down the road and one Turner will be keeping a close eye on.

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