The Department of Transportation is assigning a single roundtrips worth of slots to Washington National Airport by year end and Akron-Canton Airport (CAK) hopes to gain the new service if US Airways wins the award. Akron has been working on such service for more than a decade and said the airline expects to use Bombardier CRJ 200s on the flights.
"We have never been this close," said Richard B. McQueen, president & CEO of Akron-Canton Airport. "Washington D.C. is our number one requested destination and US Airways is the perfect partner to fly the route. US Airways provides excellent service to our community and we are delighted that they have selected Akron-Canton for this very valuable opportunity. If awarded, we will do everything we can to support it."
US Airways currently offers CAK customers five round trip flights to their Charlotte, North Carolina hub and two to their Philadelphia, Pennsylvania hub.
The slots were originally made available under the guidelines of AIR-21/Vision 100, which, according to US Airways which would use the slots to complement service it already provides to Philadelphia and Charlotte, is geared toward providing links between small communities and hub
Akron-Canton Airport kicked off CAK 2018, its 10-year, $110-million Capital Improvement Plan in March of this year. The plan is the most ambitious in the airport's 62-year history and includes a 600-ft. runway extension allowing full-sized jets to reach the west coast, Caribbean and Mexico. Other projects include a Customs and Border Patrol Facility, extended upper level concourse and the construction of Port Green, an industrial park that could bring more than 1,000 high paying jobs to northeast Ohio.