Lehigh Valley International Airport

Lehigh Valley International Airport (IATA: ABE, ICAO: KABE, FAA LID: ABE) (formerly Allentown–Bethlehem–Easton International Airport) is a public airport in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. It is 3 miles (5 km) northeast of Allentown, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, the third most populated metropolitan region in the state (after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh). It is owned and operated by the Lehigh–Northampton Airport Authority. In 2012, 723,556 people used the airport. For 2012 the FAA has categorized ABE airport as a "nonhub" which is an airport having more than 10,000 but less than 0.05% of the annual passenger boardings of all the commercial service airports in the USA. In previous years the FAA called the airport a "small hub". The airport is a usual stopover for aircraft. The airport has had competition from Philadelphia International Airport (75 driving miles) and Newark Liberty International Airport (80 driving miles), which have more flights and sometimes lower fares. This was exacerbated by the completion of the Pennsylvania extension of Interstate 78 in 1990, allowing a faster drive to Newark; and the opening of Interstate 476 in 1991 made it easier to reach Interstate 95 near Philadelphia. Competition increased in 2013: Frontier Airlines began non-stop service to ten cities from nearby Trenton-Mercer Airport.