AUBURN – There are enough air travel passengers around the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport to support daily passenger service, according to a marketing study.

“The study is very optimistic,” airport Manager Rick Cloutier said Tuesday. “We have the numbers to support that kind of service. It’s just a matter of convincing some airlines to come down and do it.”

Cloutier will present the study and its findings to a joint meeting of the Lewiston and Auburn city councilors at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

A year ago, councilors told Cloutier they believed the small airport could support passenger service.

The study seems to back that up. It found that 278,207 ticket-buying air passengers live close enough to the Auburn-Lewiston airport to make it a viable alternative to the Portland Jetport and regional airports in Augusta and Rockland. The study is available for download at the Androscoggin Valley Council of Government’s Web site.

With many people flying more than once a year, the study estimates that 468,000 passengers per year would use the airport, depending on ticket prices and the type of services offered.

It suggests regional service to a large transportation hub, such as Boston or New York.

“That would be the easiest and quickest way to jump in,” Cloutier said. It would connect passengers to 27 of the 30 most popular destinations, without competing directly with Portland. Jetport carriers do not offer direct flights to Boston.

The study also called for creating a regional leisure service with a small carrier, such as DirectAir, to popular destinations in Florida.

Cloutier said the cities would have to pay to build a terminal that would meet federal transportation and security screening standards before either option could happen. He did not have estimates for what that would cost but he hoped to have them before Wednesday’s meeting.

Getting daily service to Boston would require a longer runway. The airport is scheduled to begin a Federal Aviation Authority-funded runway extension in 2011.

“But the terminal work, the security upgrades, that would have to be funded locally, by the two cities,” Cloutier said.