TAKING FLIGHT IN JOHNSTOWN 'Bring the airplanes here,' airport leaders tell businesses
Randy Griffith, The Tribune-Democrat, Johnstown, Pa.
4 min read
May 27—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — The inaugural Aerium Summit next week is designed to highlight aviation education and employment opportunities, but organizers will also show off the Johnstown airport and highlight economic development efforts.
The summit will be held Tuesday through Thursday at John Murtha Johnstown- Cambria County Airport in Richland Township, featuring a schedule of breakout sessions for teachers and administrators from elementary schools through colleges who are interested in adding or expanding aviation curricula for their students.
The schedule also includes sessions for businesses with interest in aviation, including a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Mid-Atlantic Opportunity Park. The park will be developed inside the airfield fence in the 130-acre Keystone Opportunity Expansion Zone, which provides tax breaks for businesses locating there.
The summit is being organized by the nonprofit Aerium, chaired by Larry Nulton, co-founder of airport fixed-base operator Nulton Aviation Services.
The link between aviation education and economic development is obvious, Nulton said.
"With the workforce development, we hope to get economic development," he said. "It's hard to have an aviation company move to Pennsylvania — to this part of Pennsylvania — if we don't have a workforce. Over the past seven years here, we've been trying to build this infrastructure."
The proposed opportunity park will include a large hangar that could potentially be used as an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility. The Johnstown-Cambria County Airport Authority recently approved funds for design of the shell for a building that size.
"We are in a good place for an MRO," authority Chairman Rick McQuaide said, noting that many passenger flights and cargo jets already fly over the region because Johnstown is directly under busy flight paths for air travel in the Northeast.
'Cheaper than Chicago'
The opportunity park is being developed by Cambrian Hills Development, which is owned by Nulton. His team is already contacting existing MRO operators to see if they would like to expand in Johnstown.
Johnstown is conveniently close, by jet, to the major airports in the Northeast, Nulton said.
"We are marketing and say, 'Put your MRO here. It's cheaper than Long Island. It's cheaper than Chicago,' " he said. "We want them to move here, bring the airplanes here, bring people here to work and hire our kids. We want them to hire local and keep it growing here. These are high-paying jobs."
While the opportunity park is not expected to open until at least late next year, the authority is moving ahead with renovations on an existing three-unit hangar and is about to break ground on two new 2,000-square-foot corporate hangars.
The $2.5 million corporate hangar building contract was awarded in March to Darr Construction, of Berlin.
Airport Manager Cory Cree said he's been talking to a potential tenant, but if that deal doesn't come through, he's confident there is enough demand for hangar space to fill the buildings.
Renovations of Hangar 15 have been ongoing to accommodate St. Francis University's planned aircraft maintenance classes and to expand Nulton Aviation Flight Academy.
The growing flight school has already become an asset for recruiting aviation-related businesses, Nulton said. The current enrollment is about 50 students.
"When we started (in 2016), there were four," he said.
Businesses currently located at the airport are already demonstrating economic potential.
In addition to the growth of Nulton's flight school, Flair of Country Catering and Event Center's success in the airport terminal's former restaurant space has led to its expansion into a new facility. Construction of The Willow began earlier this year and continues across Airport Road from the future location of the opportunity park.
The local connection with SkyWest Airlines is also a positive sign for aviation business opportunities here, Nulton said.
SkyWest is the airport's federally subsidized air carrier, offering daily United Express flights to Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., and O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.
It's the nation's largest regional airline, but SkyWest recently launched a charter operation and is working to transition its commercial flights to be certified as charter flights.
As part of that process, the airline is replacing United logos on its jets with its own logos and removing 20 seats to bring the capacity to 30 passengers, as required for charter service.
That work is being done in Johnstown, showing the airline's commitment here, Nulton said.
"They promised to bring the jets here and work on them here," he said. "Now, when you go out and market your place, you can use names like SkyWest.
"We have a flight school here. We now have a maintenance training program here. Before, we couldn't say any of that. I had nothing to show them. Now they see the hard work. They see they have a great support system and they know they have good political support and government support because the project has been so successful."
