This week’s guest is Stephanie Gehman, who is the marketing manager for Harrisburg International Airport.
- Harrisburg International Airport (a.k.a. HIA, MDT, and @HIAairport)
- BWI and Philadelphia International Airport as competitors, Lancaster Airport as not a direct competitor
- HIA’s outreach into the Lancaster area
- Twitter and YouTube
- Extraordinary rendition
- Stephanie’s love of flight
- Google Earth’s flight simulator
- Unusual places to get married
- HIA tweetup
- Manhattans (and dreams about drinking them)
- Restaurants at HIA
- BOLO 2009
Intro/Outro: “Pony Up”/”Which Way You Gonna Go?” by Lancaster band Slimfit, off their album Make It Worse. Thanks, guys, for allowing us to use your great music.
P.S. Be sure to check out Progressive Galleries’ Eric Armusik exhibit now through the end of October.
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Podcast: Download (Duration: 28:15 — 25.9MB)
For as slow as you might think the Lancaster Airport is, many would be surprised to know that it has more flights than HIA and is the third busiest airport in PA as far as take offs and landings are concerned. It may not have near as much commercial service, but I don’t think you’ll find any $99 round trip flights at HIA either. They also have a few trips to Orlando every year. Kind of funny plugging a Harrisburg business on a LANCASTER website.
Thanks for the comments. I don’t believe we made any comments that the Lancaster airport is slow, but rather simply that in marketing terms, HIA doesn’t consider it a competitor because of the kinds of flights the Lancaster airport offers.
Also, I hope you have the chance to listen to the episode. We had Stephanie on the show to talk about HIA’s marketing efforts in Lancaster. That was the local bent.
I’d love to use HIA more… If only the train went there from Lancaster! That’s one of the main reasons I go to PHL…
Lancasteria, thank you for your feedback.
Lancaster Airport has a considerable amount of general/corporate aviation activity and more aircraft operations per year as a result of that type of aircraft traffic, making it the third busiest airport in the state after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
HIA is primarily a commercial and cargo aviation trafficked airport. It is owned by an airport authority that additionally owns and operates three smaller airports in Central PA for purposes of corporate/general aviation. These three other airports are located in Gettysburg, New Cumberland and Chambersburg.
Daniel is correct when he stated that it wasn’t indicated that Lancaster Airport was slow, but that from a commercial aviation marketing/advertising standpoint, HIA considers our direct competition to be Philadelphia and Baltimore Washington airports
Lancasteria, you’re welcome to contact me directly should you have any questions or comments. I am happy to chat with you more!
Carmalena,
Thank you for the feedback. We’ve worked diligently for years to get an AMTRAK station at the airport, but at this point I am not quite sure when it would become a reality. Thanks for considering to fly HIA, it’s much appreciated!