Private Airport Delayed In East Hampton

East Hampton had planned to shut down the public East Hampton Airport (KHTO) at the end of February and reopen it as a private-use facility this month, but the closure has been delayed until May 17. The extra time will allow the town and Federal Aviation Administration to attempt to work together to resolve approval issues with its airspace, tower staffing, procedures, and pilot approaches. Under the revised schedule, the airport is expected to reopen May 19. 

Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc acknowledged that recertifying instrument approaches into the airport could take until the end of the summer. The FAA had previously warned the town that converting to private use would require approvals that could take up to two years and would disable all FAA-operated navigational, weather, and communications aids.

The town’s strategy to convert the airport to private use, officially in the name of noise abatement, has prompted charges that it was at least partially motivated by money: $10 million in unspent federal grant funds had been designated for the airport, and by converting it to private use, the town could try to use that money for other purposes. In February, in fact, the town announced that it would spend exactly $10 million to acquire 12.4 acres of prime real estate, convert it to farmland, and lease it to a farmer. 

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Converting the airport also has drawn widespread criticism from a variety of aviation interests. Earlier in February, Kenneth Grimes, the vice president of air ambulance conglomerate Global Medical Response, warned the town board that the move would eliminate the “essential utility [the airport] provides the community” by making it, essentially, a VFR-only facility, thereby “limiting access in weather conditions that frequently prevail on the eastern end of Long Island, crippling our capacity to serve the area, and impeding our ability to save lives.” 

Jeff Smith, vice president of operations and government affairs for the Eastern Region Helicopter Council, warned fellow members, “We are in a very serious time here. We are continuing to work through this issue and want to remind everyone that [KHTO] is everybody’s problem. COVID has put incredible strain on our heliport infrastructure and they are having hard financial times. The summer service is very important to them so a reduction or change in operations will greatly affect their livelihood.” In an article published earlier this month in the Long Island Business News, Smith maintained that hastily converting the airport to private use would simply move the local noise problem to other area communities and create “chaos in the skies and more traffic on our roads.”

Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade Air Mobility, echoed Smith's concerns. Wiesenthal told BJT that the airport is “one of the most important pieces of infrastructure” on eastern Long Island and that converting it to private use “is not the right method” to achieve the town’s advertised goal of noise abatement. “We’ve flown tens of thousands of people back and forth between various bases in the Hamptons [and New York City] and they are not going to stop flying. There are lots of alternative landing zones from South Hampton to Montauk to Sag Harbor that can be used by amphibious seaplanes, helicopters, you name it. Sag Harbor is only a 10-minute drive to the East Hampton airport. What incentive will operators have to fly noise-abatement routes if all of a sudden the [East Hampton] airport is either closed or has numerous restrictions to constrain the number of flights?”

Wiesenthal said that Blade had proposed several noise-abatement solutions to the town board, including the use of over-water routes, deeper curfews, leaving aircraft at the airport on Sunday night for Monday morning commutes, and limiting the use of noisier and larger aircraft during early mornings and late evenings. “There’s a lot we can do with curfews, altitudes, and routes,” Wiesenthal said. “But the town needs to engage.”