Orange County’s Stewart International Airport will now officially be named the New York Stewart International Airport.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced June 29 that the new name has been formally adopted and “will help promote the entire Mid-Hudson Valley region and build on the remarkable passenger growth over the past year.”
The rebranding was approved earlier this year by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport. The Port Authority will also invest $30 million to build a 20,000-square-foot U.S. Customs inspection station at the airport, which will allow Stewart to expand its passenger volume.
The name change comes about a year after Norwegian Air launched its first transatlantic daily flight from Stewart last summer, which landed in Edinburgh, Scotland. The cost-cutting Norwegian Air now flies from Stewart to five European cities and plans to increase the frequency of the routes.
Norwegian’s flights, along with an expansion of domestic routes offered by Allegiant Air, helped boost passenger traffic 60 percent at Stewart last year, according to the governor’s announcement.
The airport is also serviced by JetBlue Airways Corp., American Airlines Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc.
In the first year under Norwegian, about 450,000 commercial passengers flew into and out of Stewart, including 141,000 international fliers, according to numbers from the governor’s office. That’s up from about 275,000 total passengers in 2016.
The airport is also soliciting proposals to build a privately financed $7 million carport at Stewart, which would include 450 parking spaces and a rooftop with solar panels capable of producing 1.9 megawatts of power.
It should be renamed NEWBURGH, repeating, NEWBURGH Stewart International Airport!!! }:-(