Tom Cruise's success credited with bump in Westmoreland air show attendance

It isn’t exactly risky business to assume that actor Tom Cruise’s summer blockbuster sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick,” may have played a role in the wildly successful attendance figures reported for this year’s Shop ’n Save Westmoreland Airshow.

About 50,000 people attended the air show earlier this month, making it among the best attended since the Unity airport started having shows in 1975, officials said Tuesday.

“I’d say it was the biggest small show we’ve ever had. I think people wanted to get outside, relax and see what we had here,” said Gabe Monzo, executive director of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport.

Cruise’s sequel to the 1986 “Top Gun” film — opening just two weeks before the air show — “didn’t hurt attendance either,” Monzo said.

The June 11 and 12 show featured fighter jets from the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy and many vintage war planes.

“People saw the movie and then may have decided to come here to see one (a U.S. Navy F-18) up close and in person,” he said.

Despite the high attendance figures, Monzo noted that this year’s show was considered “small” because it did not feature a military aerial flight demonstration team such as the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, Navy Blue Angels or Royal Canadian Air Force Snowbirds as it has in many past years.

Rich Haeflein, advertising account manager for Shop ’n Save, the primary sponsor of the show for the past seven years and a part of it for 25 years, lauded airport officials and volunteers who worked the show. He said many of the vendors contacted him afterward to praise the hospitality they received.

Haeflein believes attendance this year rivaled the 2018 show, which featured the Thunderbirds. Airport officials estimated the gate attendance during that two-day show approached 100,000.

“If pressed, I’d estimate we had 30,000 on Saturday and 20,000 Sunday. I’d say we had another 50,000 around the airport watching over both days,” Monzo said. “It was a successful culmination of a lot of effort by a lot of groups and individuals and multiple agencies including the TSA and county police, who made it safe for everyone.”

In addition to the Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon or Viper, the show included a U.S. Navy F-18 Super Hornet demonstration, the same as the ones used in the “Top Gun” movie.

It also included a demonstration by a P-51 Mustang, a World War II-era fighter plane, and aerobatic demonstrations by the Lake Erie Warbirds and the Jersey Jerks.