With 52,000 plus fans expected to attend Thursday nights highly anticipated match up between the 20th ranked Kansas State Wildcats and 5th ranked Auburn Tigers, Manhattan Regional Airport is expecting to see a large number of those fans flying into the airport.

Peter Van Kuren, Airport Director explained that it is not uncommon for 60 or more private aircraft to fly into the airport on game days, especially when the Wildcats are playing a Big 12 opponent.

“It’s typical, we’ve seen it an awful lot during the Big 12 games when some of the larger schools with traveling alumni, like Oklahoma or Texas, come to town, they usually bring a lot of their fan base where a lot of folks fly in on private planes,” says Van Kuren. ” We expect probably not only something similar but amplified a little bit because it’s Auburn and their ranking right now.”

With the influx in traffic Van Kuren says that he expects to see a large economic impact due to both fuel sales and car rental concessions at the airport.

Kansas State officials are expecting record setting attendance at the game. John Currie, Athletic Director said that the only reason they wouldn’t break the record is because they chose not to sell 500 standing room only tickets. He explained that they are expecting the student section to overflow onto the hill in the northeast corner of the stadium.