You’ll be able to fly American Airlines out of this Kansas airport beginning next week

Lindsay Smith
·2 min read

American Airline travelers will soon be able to fly in and out of Manhattan, Kan., once more.

The Manhattan Regional Airport celebrated American Airline’s return with a social media post earlier this week. It suspended flights from the airport in May due to construction on the primary runway.

Service for the airline out of Manhattan will be back up and running Monday, Sept. 25.

Construction began in September 2022 and included reworking intersections, replacing lights, signs and preforming grading, according to the airport’s website.

“We had concrete that was four decades old and we were to the point where .... we needed to replace it,” Airport Director Brandon Keazer said. “We ended up rubblizing the existing concrete and then building the runway on top of that, and that’s why we were able to accomplish this full reconstruction of our primary runway in a little over four and a half months.”

American Airlines was originally supposed to return Sept. 6, but that was pushed due to construction delays, the city of Manhattan announced in August.

The regional affiliate of American Airlines, called American Eagle, services round-trip flights from Manhattan Regional Airport to Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago. You can book a flight out of or into Manhattan Regional Airport on American Airline’s website.

American Airlines shows round trips to Chicago or Dallas/Fort Worth out of Manhattan as low as $673.

The first flight is landing on the new runway at 11:45 a.m. Monday. It will be celebrated by a water-cannon salute from Manhattan Fire Department. The airport is also providing 25 days of free parking starting that day to make up for the 25-day construction delay.

“I just wanted to say thank you to all our customers as we got through this rather important project,” Keazer said. “Now we have this brand new runway that we shouldn’t have to shut down this airport for the next 20, 30 or even 40 years.”

Keazer said, on average, about 150,000 people visit the Manhattan Airport every year.

Manhattan is located about two hours from Wichita. American Airlines already offers flights out of Wichita’s Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport and Kansas City International Airport in Kansas City.