‘An airline that will be self-sustaining’: LNK board sets its course with five new goals

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — Lincoln Airport’s board of directors hosted a townhall Tuesday night to lay out some goals for the future.

The five goals are adding another commercial air service, increasing seat capacity, growing the airport’s industrial park by 25%, increasing their fundraising efforts for the parks and expanding their hangars.

“The goal is we want an airline that will be self-sustaining,” board member Vanessa Emlich said, later adding, “The return on investment here is clear.”

She said even bringing a twice-weekly leisure airline flight to Lincoln would bring in $5.5 million to $8.7 million dollar increase in economic with increased jobs and business transactions.

The airport property tax levy is 3.1 cents per $100,000 of valuation. Airport officials said it’s a small amount that goes a long way.

Chairman Chris Hove said that some of that money used to maintain all the roads in the air park.

“We have 26 miles of roads and four or five bridges, so that’s a small community in Nebraska,” he said.

The public in attendance raised many questions surrounding the demand for more flights.

The airport said United Airlines is adding more flights.

“By the end of the year, we will have 10 flights, five Chicago and five Denver, airport spokeswoman Rachel Barth said.

LNK also said it wants the planes that do fly out of Lincoln to hold more people.

“We understand your desire, our collective desire to see United bring larger aircrafts here,” operations director Bob McNally said. “That is something being worked on all the time and would be very popular. We know that. But United only has so may aircrafts, so you have to keep pressing, which is what’s happening.”

The meeting ended on an encouraging note.

“Hang in there, and thank you for flying out of Lincoln,” board member John Olsson said.