History
Westchester County Airport was built during World War II in 1942 as a home to an Air National Guard unit to protect New York City and Rye Lake, part of the city's water supply system. In May 1983, with the quick growth of the suburban area in Westchester, the Guard unit was moved to Stewart International Airport further to the north near Newburgh.
The first scheduled airline flights were American Airlines in late 1949; they had one weekday morning flight La Guardia to HPN to Syracuse and beyond, returning in the evening. Mohawk replaced American in 1955, it and successor Allegheny Airlines serving HPN until 1979. (The first scheduled jet flight was a Mohawk BAC 1-11 in 1965.) Before the passing of the Airline Deregulation Act the airport was served by several regional airlines, including Allegheny, Command Airways and Empire Airlines. Air Florida arrived in 1980 and United Airlines in 1983-84. On January 5, 2006, the airport was the point of departure for the last flight of Independence Air; a flight to Washington, D.C. at 7:26 pm.
The airport is presently served by six commercial airlines. Former airlines include Independence Air, Continental Airlines, Air Canada and AirTran Airways. AirTran began service at the airport in 2006. The airline operated flights to Atlanta, Orlando and West Palm Beach. This service ended on August 11, 2012.
JetBlue began service at the airport in 2007. Today, JetBlue is the airport's largest carrier. It operates 14 daily round trips to six destinations: Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm Beach and Nassau, Bahamas using all Embraer 190 aircraft.
In June 2009 Cape Air add service to Westchester, with service to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. Cape Air introduced service to Lebanon Municipal Airport in New Hampshire in early 2010. All Cape Air flights depart and arrive from the Signature Flight Support facility located south of the Main Terminal due to a lack of ticket counter space in the main terminal building.
In June 2010, Air Canada announced that it would be dropping service at the airport. This ended international flights at the airport until service to the Bahamas started in 2011.
On November 18, 2010, American Airlines switched service to the airport from American Eagle to AmericanConnection, operated by Chautauqua Airlines, using its smaller ERJ-140 aircraft.
Read more about this topic: Westchester County Airport
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