Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 8

161 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 8 EVANSV I LLE REGIONAL A I RPORT forest to the west Most of the traffic at the airport comes from Indiana, an estimated 60-65 percent, with the rest from Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky. The airport management estimates there are just under a million people in the catchment area. “We’re in the middle of a larger circle of cities like Indianapolis, Louisville, St. Louis, and Nashville,” says Nate Hahn, Executive Director of Evansville Regional Airport. As Indiana is the crossroads of America, the airport is uniquely positioned, not just for manufacturing but logistics as well, with Interstate 64 running east and west through the city and the new Interstate 69 being completed, which will link Canada to Mexico. The airport is a vital business lifeline for the city of Evansville and the surrounding towns, with large companies located in these pockets, such as Jasper Engines, Kimball, AstraZeneca, Toyota, and Berry Global. Almost all of these companies will use the airport to reach a number of large metro hubs. Hahn reports, “Our commercial flights include American Airlines to Dallas, Charlotte and Chicago. United Airlines flies to Chicago as well, and Delta Airlines flies to Atlanta and Detroit. And Allegiant Air flies twice a week to Orlando, and during the summer season, flights to Destin are included.” There have not been any new additions to the commercial flights recently, due to the pandemic reducing the demand for travel. However, in the 10 years previous to 2020, many of the listed commercial flights were added due to demand. Even in light of the restrictions for COVID-19, the airport has actually seen impressive gains in traffic numbers compared to 2019. According to Hahn, “We got June’s numbers and we’re back at 76 percent of what we were achieving in 2019. Which is a massive improvement from the beginning of the year, which was around 40