State College airport adds new ‘special event’ destinations around Penn State sporting events
University Park Airport is offering several limited-time, nonstop flights to new destinations to coincide with Penn State sporting events, giving the community (and out-of-town fans) a handful of unique traveling opportunities.
The new, temporary nonstop routes include Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; and Nashville — and they’ll each be available for less than a full week. The “special event” routes will coincide with the Sept. 18 Penn State-Auburn football game at Beaver Stadium and the Oct. 30 Penn State-North Dakota U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game in Tennessee.
Although the Atlanta and Birmingham nonstop flights are catering to Auburn fans and Penn State alumni down south, Happy Valley locals not interested in football can also use the Sept. 18 weekend to travel to and from Atlanta, for $327 round trip, based on Google flight data as of Tuesday afternoon.
Here’s a look at all the new nonstop flights and the dates they’re available:
- Flights from Atlanta to State College (Delta): 1:15 p.m. Sept. 17; 8:51 a.m. Sept. 19; 11:25 a.m. Sept. 19
- Flights from State College to Atlanta (Delta): 3:51 p.m. Sept. 17; 11:31 a.m. Sept. 19; 2:04 p.m. Sept 19
- Flights from Birmingham to State College (United): 7 a.m. Sept. 18; 8 a.m. Sept. 18
- Flights from State College to Birmingham (United): 7 a.m. Sept. 19; 8 a.m. Sept. 19
- Flights from State College to Nashville (Allegiant): 3:34 p.m. Oct. 28; 3:34 p.m. Oct. 31
- Flights from Nashville to State College (Allegiant): 5:09 p.m. Oct 28; 5:09 p.m. Oct. 31
As of press time, a Nashville roundtrip ticket costs $75 (plus carry-on/checked bags), although that price is obviously not expected to last.
“Special event” routes aren’t unusual in the airline industry, but they do occur sparingly at the small Centre County airport that sees fewer than 200,000 annual passengers.
“Those come about because we make airlines aware of these special events and ask if they can take a look at those and see if there’s potential demand for them to add flights,” said Bryan Rodgers, director of the University Park Airport. “The airlines ultimately make the decision; we just try to present a good case ... and Penn State sports typically sells itself in terms of the enthusiasm and loyalty of the fans and how well they travel.”
University Park Airport boasted a similar setup when No. 3 Alabama visited Happy Valley in 2011. The airport also tends to annually offer more flights, or bigger planes, around July’s Big Ten football media days — and it it also plans to utilize larger aircraft involving Detroit around Sept. 18 this year, as that’s a hub for connecting flights to State College.
Penn State-Auburn is expected to see large crowds for multiple reasons. For one, the 7:30 p.m. prime-time contest will likely be named a White Out game, an environment ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit has lauded as one of the nation’s best. It’ll also be the first time Penn State meets an SEC opponent in the regular season since Alabama in 2010-2011, and it’ll be the Nittany Lions’ toughest home test since the 2019 season. (Ball State, the home opener Sept. 11, doesn’t exactly move the needle.)
Tickets on the secondary market for the Sept. 18 matchup start at $280.
For fans of Penn State hockey, the 8 p.m. game Oct. 30 is also a big one. North Dakota, which has made four Frozen Four appearances in the last decade, has never before faced the Nittany Lions. The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game is also a prestigious regular season contest that doubles as a fundraiser for the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum in Eveleth, Minnesota.
Tickets start at $60 on the secondary market for the game, which was rescheduled from last year.
“Penn State hockey fans are pretty loyal and very, very supportive of their hockey team, so it gives fans — and others who have an interest in Nashville — an opportunity to get down there and support Penn State,” Rodgers added.
For those uninterested in sports, University Park service to and from the Tampa-St. Petersburg area will restart Oct. 9 after it was temporarily halted. That is not a “special event”; that will be recurring with two weekly roundtrips. Other cities the University Park Airport has regular nonstop flights to include Chicago, Detroit, Orlando/Sanford, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
For more information, go to UniversityParkAirport.com or visit one of the participating airlines.
