County residents will once again be able to fly directly from Vero Beach to Asheville, NC next summer – and probably also from Vero to Portland, Maine – on Elite Airways, according to the airline’s president John Pearsall.
Pearsall said last weekend the boutique airline will resume non-stop passenger-jet service between Vero Beach and Newark, New Jersey, in March, and he expects to end a two-year pause in flights to and from Asheville later in the spring.
The Maine-based carrier was forced to temporarily move its Vero Beach service to Melbourne in September, when the longest runway at the airport here was shut down for resurfacing.
“Based on what we’re hearing from your local airport officials, we anticipate that the runway project will be finished by mid-March, so we’ve begun booking the Newark flights,” said Pearsall, who attended the “Wings and Wheels Exhibition” at the Vero Beach airport Saturday.
“We started here with the Newark flights a few years ago, and they’ve been a huge success for us,” he added. “It remains our most popular route.”
According to Elite’s website, the Newark service returns March 25 with flights departing and arriving on Mondays and Fridays, following the same schedule that was in place before the planned six-month interruption.
The return of seasonal service between Vero Beach and Asheville – and probably Portland, Maine – could start as soon as May, Pearsall said.
Elite, which began flying between Vero Beach and Newark in December 2015, added summer service to and from Asheville in May 2017, with flights on Thursdays and Sundays.
The airline didn’t offer service to Asheville the past two summers, however, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted its decision to suspend all commercial passenger service in March 2020.
Two months later, Elite resumed its Vero Beach service to and from Newark and Portland, but all Asheville flights were canceled.
“We were getting a good response to our Asheville flights before the pandemic, and we’re looking forward to bringing them back,” Pearsall said. “You’ll probably see service to Portland again, too.”
Pearsall scoffed at speculation that Elite saw the runway project as an opportunity to test the viability of permanently moving its Vero Beach operations to the Melbourne airport, which draws from a larger market.
He said many travelers in the Melbourne area prefer the wider range of choices available at Orlando International Airport, which offers more direct flights to more destinations and is only an hour’s drive or less.
“It was never my intention to leave Vero,” he said, shrugging off a reminder that Elite was briefly evicted from the Vero Beach airport in March 2020 over $35,000 in what were then unpaid fees.
Since the relocation from Vero Beach in September, Pearsall said, a surprising number of Indian River County travelers – many of whom had flown with Elite before – have made the drive to Melbourne to board the airline’s flights to Newark.
“I don’t know the exact numbers, but I know they’ve been pretty good,” he said. “If you include the passengers we’ve picked up from the Melbourne area, there’s been no negative impact on our business.
“But we’re excited about getting back to Vero Beach.”
The runway shutdown was necessary for the city to embark on an $8.5 million resurfacing project, funded primarily by funds provided by the Federal Aviation Administration and Florida Department of Transportation.
Vero Beach Airport Director Todd Scher said last week work on the project was ahead of schedule and he expected the 7,314-foot-long runway to be reopened by mid-March, though the contractor has until late April to finish the job.
“I’ve been involved in these runway projects for over 25 years, and I know delays can happen, but the feeling on the job site is that they’ll get it all done by mid-March,” Scher said of the project, which also includes the installation of new edge lights, pavement markings and other navigational aids.
“The paving part of the project is almost done, and everything seems to be going very well,” he added. “So I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Florida airport runways should be repaved every 20 years, Scher said, adding that the local airfield’s longest runway hadn’t been resurfaced since 2001.
Scher said the pavement on the resurfaced runway will be 2 and a half feet deep – six inches thicker than it was when the project began.
The timing of the project was determined by the funding availability and weather patterns, Scher said. Though the money was available last summer, he didn’t want to start work in the middle of the rainy season, when daily downpours could delay construction.
“John is aware that the contractor could go into April, if necessary, but we’re keeping him updated,” Scher said. “If something happens and we’re not done, he’ll move the bookings to Melbourne. But we don’t anticipate any delays.”
