FLIGHTS TO ST AUGUSTINE
Everyone that lives in St Augustine knows we have an airport just 5 miles north from the downtown area but to get a flight anywhere we have to head to one of the commercial airports in Jacksonville, Daytona, or Orlando which means we are tacking on an hour plus to our travels.
After WWII in 1946 gov’t “feeder lines” provided passenger and airmail service and it was a scheduled stop for not one, but two, passenger airlines. Unfortunately this was short lived and the airport became a white elephant that the city couldn’t afford to maintain so they leased it to the Moose Lodge for $1 year. $1 can you believe it?
It wasn’t until 1964 when the airport started to see the necessary improvements and expansion through new legislation, widely supported at the time by many well known groups like The Rotary and the Board of Realtors but it still took another 20 years when a small Ft Lauderdale airline started to provide flights to and from St Augustine to other cities in Florida and the Bahamas. Unfortunately this didn’t last a year but boy would this be a convenient service to have now. I for one would love an easy flight to the Bahamas. Anyway, in the 1980’s did receive the FAA certifications to enable larger aircraft carrying 35 passengers or more. These types of improvements continued in the 90’s with the addition of the Fly By Cafe, now Hangar One Bistro but still after decades of improvements, commercial airlines coming into St Augustine seemed only a pipe dream.
It’s certainly been a long road for our small airport but on November 20th St Augustine welcomed the first passenger flight in a very long time when Elite Airways brought passengers to St Augustine.
Newark Airport
Elite Airways will be offering nonstop service between St Augustine and Newark Airport two days a week.
The service will depart every Monday and Friday at 10:45am from Newark and 1:15pm from St Augustine so if you are living in St Augustine and need to travel to the northeast metro area then Elite Airways just made it easier for you and of course now it’ll be much easier for people from NY and NJ to get to our beautiful little city.
St. Augustine
Considering the influx of recent home buyers from the New York area, I bet they are doing their own happy dance.
If this isn’t proof that St Augustine is officially on the map I don’t know what is.
Well I hope you are excited as much I as am about this new way to fly in and out of St Augustine.
If you have questions, you’ll find my contact info below to learn more about living in the area check out this next video
Thanks for tuning and I’ll catch you on the next one.
