My husband and I live in central Florida, so our “home” airport certainly isn’t small. In fact, MCO is currently the busiest airport in the state of Florida, and amongst the top ten busiest airports in the country. And when we lived up north, our home airport was Newark. Also not exactly tiny.
Which isn’t to say we haven’t been to some really tiny airports that offered commercial flights. Key West. Grand Junction. Ayers Rock. All of those commercial airports were small. But none of them prepared me for this place.
Where Was This Tiny Airport?
It was Lancaster Airport, a.k.a. LNS, located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
LNS has been around since 1936. It was initially developed as a private airport but was becoming obsolete by the end of WW2. So its owner, the Lancaster Airport Authority, used government funds to expand and modernize it. Upgrades occurred again in the mid-1990s.
LNS began subsidized essential air service (EAS) in 2004. Over the years, that service was provided by Air Midwest, Cape Air and Sun Air Express. It’s currently provided by Southern Airways Express.
For a time, American Airlines offered bus service to LNS. You’d fly to Philadelphia Int’l Airport and then take a charter bus (excuse me…motor coach. You’d take a motor coach) to LNS. I was intrigued and allllllmost got to experience that in 2023, but it didn’t happen because of reasons.
Anyway, not long after American Airlines pulled out of LNS, Breeze Airways pulled in. They’ve been offering twice-weekly flights to/from MCO since October, 2024. United Express launched weekly service between Lancaster (LNS) and Washington Dulles (IAD), operated by Southern Airways Express, in April 2025.
LNS also boasts:
- Flight schools
- Helicopter rides
- Hot air balloon rides
- Aircraft maintenance
- Airport tours
My experience at LNS
I have a friend, Kim, who lives in Lancaster. The two of us put our heads together, and decided that since Breeze offers that nonstop service between MCO and LNS, and who knew how long it would last, I should take advantage of it. So I visited her for a long weekend.
Kim wasn’t exaggerating
Kim warned me that LNS was small. I didn’t realize just HOW small it was.
Audience: How small was it?
It was so small, that I had to search to find the “blank”.
Duhm duhm du-du-du du-duhm
Duhm duhm du-du-du du-duhm
#IYKYK
And if you’re too young to get the Match Game reference…well…welcome to the internet, where Gen X occasionally shows up. 😉
So anyway, Kim did say it was small. But I had no idea how tiny it was until I landed.
I was expecting an outdoor ramp instead of a jet bridge, and LNS did not disappoint. What I didn’t expect was only having to walk about 100-150 feet to get inside…because when there’s only 1 commercial plane at the airport, they can park it REALLY close to the terminal.
View from just outside the terminal
And about the terminal
The terminal was indeed tiny. In fact, it reminded me more of one of the buildings you sometimes see in national parks, where the park rangers answer questions and hand out trail maps, than an airport terminal.
The terminal had one men’s room and one ladies’ room.
It also had an Italian restaurant.
And if you weren’t in the mood for a sit-down meal, it also had two vending machines, as seen in the photo above, which was a problem. The vending machines were both outside the TSA checkpoint. If you wanted to buy a soda, you had to drink it before you went through the checkpoint. On the air side, there were no vending machines or restrooms, either. There was a water cooler, though.
It also had one desk for Breeze and one for Southern Airways Express.
And I was pleasantly surprised to see rental car desks for National, Enterprise, Avis and Budget.
Oh, and for a real answer for “How small was it?” LNS is so small that it doesn’t have a baggage carousel. They put all the checked luggage onto a baggage carrier train, then drive it all out front, outside the terminal’s entrance (because there’s only one entrance, of course), so people can claim their bags.
Flying Back Home From LNS
All good things must come to an end, and it was time to go home.
After Kim dropped me off at LNS, I got a good giggle at the signage that met me about 10 feet into the terminal.
The Breeze check-in desk is about 50 feet past that arrow and TSA is directly across the hallway from there.
Since ours was the only plane (an A220-300) and it held 137 people max (and it didn’t, that day – there were only probably about 100 onboard), you’d think getting through TSA would take all of five minutes.
Yeah, not so much.
But it wasn’t because LNS is such a small airport. It was because they had just gotten a brand-spankin’-new CT scanner 3 days earlier, and the TSA officers were still being trained on how to use it.
PC: TSA.gov
So I wound up on the TSA line for 51 minutes. Fortunately, I got there 45 minutes before boarding was scheduled to start. More fortunately, boarding was delayed.
And happily, I got my green PreCheck card from the TSA officer who checked my ID. And yeah, they need to revise their green cards 
Final Thoughts on Flying Through LNS
Flying through Lancaster was honestly kind of refreshing.
Sure, it has its quirks. If you want a drink after going through TSA, you’re out of luck. If you check a bag, don’t go looking for a baggage carousel because there isn’t one. And if TSA happens to be training on a brand-new scanner…bring a little extra patience.
But everything else was wonderfully simple.
No hiking half a mile to your gate. No trains. No trams. No giant crowds.
Just one tiny terminal, one commercial flight at a time, and an airport that somehow felt more like a neighborhood community building than a commercial airport.
Would I fly through LNS again?
Absolutely.
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