With new flights and passenger numbers soaring, what's next for Wilmington's airport?

It's been a busy 18 months for the Wilmington International Airport, as the 1,800-acre facility just north of downtown Wilmington has welcomed two new carriers and nine new nonstops − five of those to Florida.

But with the rapid growth, which could see the facility handle nearly 1.3 million passengers this year compared to just under 1.1 million last year, has come some teething pains.

Parking is no longer a guarantee, especially at the airport's in-close lots, and the ticketing lobby and security checkpoint can get congested during busy departing flight periods.

Still, there's no denying that adding Avelo Airlines and flights to Tampa, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando in the Sunshine State along with Baltimore-Washington, New Haven, Connecticut, and Wilmington, Delaware, and Sun Country Airline's service to Minneapolis-St. Paul has been a feather in the cap for airport officials. American Airlines' recent announcement that it will start seasonal fall/winter service to Miami and Delta Airlines adding flights to Boston was the proverbial cherry on top.

Now the question is what comes next.

Pointing to the slide on his computer that showed ILM's current nonstop destinations on a digital map, Jeff Bourk motioned to the west. He ticked off Denver, Nashville and Los Angeles.

"They are our top markets out of Wilmington that we don't have nonstop service," said the Wilmington airport director.

Aspirational? Sure. But there's no doubt that the airport's leadership wants to keep the good times rolling.

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'An airport for everybody'

Wilmington's airport used to be a sleepy facility close to downtown where you could park cheaply and close to the terminal, likely pay more for a ticket than if you drove to Raleigh-Durham or Myrtle Beach, and stroll in 30 minutes before your flight to Charlotte or Atlanta and still have plenty of time to have a drink before boarding.

Today, the airport's parking lots and many of its areas inside the terminal are bursting at the seams. Officials are rushing to meet the surge in demand, including wrapping up a major expansion of the concourse that has increased ILM's number of gates to nine. Outside the terminal, crews are busy building a new 900-spot surface parking lot that the airport hopes to open before the Thanksgiving Day travel rush. The project will require the airport's ring road to be moved out toward North 23rd Street.

Wilmington also now offers nonstop service to 18 destinations, a significant upgrade from the handful of flights to hub airports ILM had a decade ago.

The airport's growth in recent years matches the population boom in the tri-county region, which has surged from nearly 276,000 people in 2000 to an estimated 442,000 in 2023.

But will the good times last? Many of the new nonstop destinations are seasonal, only operating for half the year or less, and fly on only a handful of days a week.

That's a big change for a facility that was known to cater to the region's business community with several flights a day on mostly small jets to big cities.

"What we need to be is an airport for everybody," Bourk said. That means offering flights aimed at leisure travelers and those flying to see family and friends as well as those traveling for work.

"We don't offer everything for everyone, and we know that," Bourk added. "But we now offer a lot more than we used to."

'A challenge and an opportunity'

Key to meeting the needs of that non-business market has been the arrival in the Port City of Avelo. The Texas-based ultra low-cost carrier started service from Wilmington in spring 2022 and now offers nonstop flights to seven destinations, including a slew of cities in Florida.

"We hold Wilmington in high regard," said Trevor Yealy, the carrier's head of network planning. "Customer reception to our service has been quite strong, as evidenced by the number of cities we now serve from ILM."

He added that more destinations from Wilmington could be in the offering, although he declined to get into details, and said Avelo basing aircraft in the Port City could also be a future possibility if the market continued to perform well.

Helping promote the new flights has been the Wilmington and Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is providing $125,000 per market to promote the Port City in four of Avelo's new destinations. Another $62,500 was used by Sun Country to market its new route in Minneapolis, with another $125,000 committed to new air service promotion in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

"It's both a challenge and an opportunity," said Kim Hufham, the visitor bureau's CEO, on entering a new market. "The challenge is with a limited budget, it is harder to build awareness in new markets without an ongoing marketing campaign. The opportunity is that we are able to have a presence in these markets with the potential for future growth."

Fastest-growing airport in NC

In today's aviation world, not much comes free. That includes new destinations.

Wilmington, as is true with most airports, is providing incentives to carriers who start new nonstop services. The perks include things like free or reduced landing and ticket counter rental fees and in some cases a guarantee from a community that it will fill a certain number of seats on each plane.

While not getting into details, Bourk said the airport's incentives are for two years or less. A federal grant is helping support Wilmington's new flights to South Florida on Avelo.

So what happens when the incentives and grant expire?

Bourk said by then the hope is the market is strong enough to support the flights on its own, that Wilmington has stimulated enough passenger traffic on the routes to show the airlines that they can be operated profitably.

That sentiment was echoed by Avelo's Yealy.

"Financial incentives may help us prioritize starting one destination over a competitor destination without incentives, but we would never start a route unless we believed it had long-term potential in our network," he said. "The purpose of the incentive is to help the airline build awareness over a long-enough period so that when the incentive runs out, the airline has built the market to stand on its own two legs."

Bourk said Wilmington's dramatic recent growth, which has seen it rocket to the top as the fastest-growing airport in North Carolina in seat-capacity growth through September 2023 and third in the whole country, has shown there's pent up demand for new air service in the market.

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But it isn't just new destinations by new carriers that's helping Wilmington. Bourk said the airport's traditional carriers, like American and Delta, are adding frequencies on many of their routes and bringing in bigger planes on some flights.

The surge in passengers comes as the airport rushes to add new amenities, like Port City Java and a Flying Machine Brewing bar, and expand its ticketing and baggage claim areas in the terminal.

And the growth doesn't look like its losing altitude even as the economy shows signs of sputtering. According to airport statistics, June was the best month ever at ILM, with 134,256 passengers using the facility. That's 37% higher than June 2022's figure, and 25% higher than any other month in Wilmington's history.

"Wilmington is a place they should be considering," Bourk said when asked if the airport is still pressing existing and new carriers for additional services from ILM. "That's our message to the airlines."

Reporter Gareth McGrath can be reached at GMcGrath@Gannett.com or @GarethMcGrathSN on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Wilmington Airport sees new destinations and more passengers