Hastings Airport welcomes charter service

HASTINGS, Neb. (KSNB) - A charter plane service was welcomed to the Hastings Municipal Airport in December 2021. From traveling to sporting events, to going to out-of-state medical appointments, to transporting cargo, getaways and more; the service could be used for a variety of purposes.

Anthony Chisano, operator for Air Exec. Inc, which provides the planes and service, said, as they expand across the Midwest, they chose Hastings as one of the locations for a reason.

“Hastings has the facilities and so, it’s very advantageous for us to be able to get our aircraft out of the weather and work on them,” he said.

In addition to the hangars to house their charter planes, he said there was also a large demand from businesses in the area.

“They reached out to us and they were a driving force to go ahead and expedite initial plan and move out that way,” he said.

Hastings Airport Fixed Based Operator Matt Kuhr said he had seen a lot of interest from the community himself.

A few weeks in, Chisano said it had been a success and that it was pushing them to make service upgrades a bit quicker than originally planned.

“We can’t keep up,” Chisano noted. “Some of our expansion is we were going to bring larger aircraft over middle part of the year, we’ve expedited that to, it’s in the process of be coming over now.”

He added, while charter services may be considered a luxury to some, it could be worth it when looking at the bigger picture.

“A lot of people see ... the increased price of private travel but, we can take three, four to eight trips and you can be home for dinner in the same day,” Chisano said.

There were two charter planes being housed at Hastings Airport. One of the planes seats six to seven passengers, while the larger plane can carry up to nine people.