American Airlines cutting flights at Tyler Pounds airport as demand falls

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - Across the country, airline travel is happening at a fraction of its normal rate. According to the TSA, they’re now screening less than 100,000 passengers a day in the U.S., down from their normal 2 million a day. Tyler Pounds airport manager Davis Dickson says the effects are being felt locally.

"Especially after the stay-at-home order, we began seeing a pretty rapid decline in people boarding commercial aircrafts,” Dickson said. Dickson says this could impact future development of the airport.

"We’re considering maybe putting a pause on the master plan maybe for a month or two. It’s hard to forecast what is the future, how will we recover,” Dickson said.

Back in February, Frontier Airlines announced it would be suspending operations at Tyler Pounds at the end of April, but Dickson says the last Frontier flight left Tyler in mid-March as the company reduced flights across the country due to COVID-19.

"We would love to see them start resuming their service, and I would say that’s not impossible. In fact, we’ve kinda heard a little bit out there that it may be a possibility, so you know, I hope there’s news to come with that,” Dickson said.

We reached out to Frontier about whether or not they would ever consider returning to Tyler Pounds. They did not return our request for comment. Dickson says although traffic is down, help from the government will keep operations going. The airport will get about $1.2 million from the CARES Act, which is designed to help alleviate economic distress brought on by COVID-19.

"It will reimburse us for our expenses here at the airport during this crisis period and kinda get us through this problem,” Dickson said.

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