FBOs
FBO Profile: Lehigh Valley Aviation Services
An FBO Thrives Amid Pennsylvania's Former Rust Belt
Lehigh Valley Aviation services, the airport owned and operated FBO at Allentown, Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley International Airport is home to more than 50 business jets and scores of smaller aircraft. With nearly 200,000 sq ft of hangar space (and another 46,000 sq ft opening later this year), the FBO with its 200 acres of space has room to accommodate nearly anything.
Lehigh Valley Aviation services, the airport owned and operated FBO at Allentown, Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley International Airport is home to more than 50 business jets and scores of smaller aircraft. With nearly 200,000 sq ft of hangar space (and another 46,000 sq ft opening later this year), the FBO with its 200 acres of space has room to accommodate nearly anything.

In his working-class anthem Allentown, singer Billy Joel described the decline of Pennsylvania's rust belt, long the heart of America's steel industry. Bethlehem Steel, one of the titans in the field, as well as one of the region's major employers went bankrupt, but today, amid the ghosts of the company's former flight department at Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE), an FBO is thriving. Operated since 2004 by the Lehigh Northampton Airport Authority (along with the lone service facilities at Allentown Queen City Municipal Airport and Braden Airpark (formerly Easton Airport)), Lehigh Valley Aviation Services occupies Hangar Seven, which still bears evidence of its former occupant. In a recent windstorm, one of the FBO’s sign boards was blown down revealing the original Bethlehem Steel name on the nearly 60-year old structure.