A Rome Free Academy graduate who’s worked in the airline industry since 1986 liked what he saw during a tour of Griffiss airfield Friday afternoon.

"I’m really impressed," said Spirit Airlines Chief Executive Ben Baldanza as he stood in the office of the Million Air fixed-base operations. "It’s impossible not to be."

Immediately outside the office on the tarmac was a Boeing 747 that had landed a few hours earlier for a refit in Baldanza’s home town.

Baldanza, age 48, says he learned to fly at Griffiss back when it was an Air Force base. He gained access through the aero club.

The county airport moved to Griffiss from Whitestown in January 2007 — 12 years after the base closed — and is focused on general aviation, charters and aircraft maintenance operations.

The licensed private pilot assumed the position of president and chief executive officer of Florida-based discount airline in May 2006, after serving as president and chief operating officer since 2005.

The 1980 RFA graduate was back in the town yesterday meeting and greeting folks at the invitation of the Rome Area Chamber of Commerce.

What would it take to land scheduled passenger service in Oneida County? The county has not had commercial passenger service since June 30, 2002, when the federal government ended its subsidy because of the decline in passenger numbers and an excessive subsidy per passenger.

Baldanza said when Spirit looks at adding new service it considers whether it can "collect enough people to fill a $40 million airplane." He said key factors include whether there is demand 12 months a years and fares.

He sees two possible scenarios for Griffiss.

¿ A feeder service into a bigger hub, not unlike what existed at the old county airport until 2002. "Big hubs can create traffic to and from a lot of places," he observed.

¿ Service by a "niche airline" that is not daily. Instead, perhaps scheduled flights two or three times a week that serve leisure markets, like Florida. He noted that it is not unheard of for non-daily service to increase in frequency as a carrier’s presence becomes established.

He did not rule out the possibility of charter flights being drawn to Griffiss because of the nearby Oneida Indian Nation Turning Stone Resort and Casino. Already there is a charter service that picks up gamblers at Griffiss and whisks them off to Atlantic City.

Earlier in his meeting with reporters he said, "We continue to look at Central New York" when discussing where Spirit flies to and might in the future. He noted the closest his airline comes to upstate now is New York City. It operates more than 150 daily flights to about 40 destinations, many of them in the Caribbean and Latin America.

To get to Rome he flew into the Syracuse airport and then drove to Oneida County.

Should the aircraft maintenance business revive at Griffiss it is not beyond the realm of possibility that someday Spirt Airlines might send its planes here for heavy maintenance.

He noted that Spirt’s relatively small fleet of Airbus models is aging and will need heavy maintenance checks in a few years. As a result, the airline will be looking for an outside company to do the work. The company now has 31 Airbus aircraft and expects to have 65 by the end of 2015.

"Our business isn’t fixing airplanes. We fly airplanes," Baldanza said of the company seeking a long-term relationship with an aircraft overhaul contractor in the next couple of years.

Baldanza, who received a master’s degree in transportation economics from Princeton University, previously worked at US Airways, Continental, Northwest and American airlines.

Spirit Airlines was founded in 1980 in Macomb County, Mich., as Charter One, a Detroit-based charter tour operator providing travel packages to entertainment destinations such as Atlantic City, Las Vegas and the Bahamas. In 1990, Charter One began scheduled service. On May 29, 1992, Charter One brought jet equipment into the fleet, changed its name to Spirit Airlines and inaugurated service from Detroit to Atlantic City.

The airline created quite a buzz in April when it announced it would charge fees for some carry-ons, drawing the ire of passenger rights groups and lawmakers. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called the decision to start charging passengers for carry-on bags "outrageous" and "ridiculous," adding: "I don’t think they care about their customers."

Just last month the discount airline roused controversy again with a web promotion that made light of the Gulf Coast oil spill. Within a day, the ad was pulled from Spirit’s site.