The manager of the Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport alerted county commissioners this week that the airport could lose $850,000 in federal funding if its passenger numbers don’t pick up in the remainder of the year.
The Ellsworth American reported the airport needs to log 10,000 paid passengers in a calendar year in order to receive $1 million in entitlement funds from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Capital Improvement Program. If it fails to reach that benchmark, the funding drops to $150,000.
The newspaper reported that the airport manager told Hancock County commissioners she would be encouraging PenAir, a carrier that began serving the county this summer, to beef up its marketing in hopes of increasing the number of paid passengers to meet the FAA’s 10,000 passenger threshold.