The Boston Globe
Passenger site visitors has plunged on the Hyannis airport in recent times. Now, its operators need to lengthen the runway to deal with greater new plans from New York.
WEST YARMOUTH — It’s a typical afternoon within the Hyannis Park neighborhood of West Yarmouth: a continuing rumble of small planes flying in over Lewis Bay rattles home windows and prompts residents to mute video calls. Seemingly each jiffy in the summertime, life pauses.
“All conversations cease whereas the planes go overhead,” mentioned Elissa Buja, a longtime resident.
And this summer time, there are much more. With one runway at Cape Cod Gateway Airport in Hyannis closed for upkeep work, many of the air site visitors nowadays is available in over the Hyannis Park neighborhood.
And all of it for an airport utilized by few Cape Codders, and even, for that matter, by many individuals in any respect. Industrial passenger site visitors on the airport is a fraction of what it as soon as was, whereas non-public planes and constitution service, which usually carry fewer individuals, have elevated considerably. For instance, the one main airline offering regional service, JetBlue, has simply 4 flights every day, whereas the whole variety of landings and takeoffs in June topped 4,600, in accordance with the airport’s most up-to-date knowledge.
And now the airport needs to increase one runway, a $22 million mission to accommodate the bigger Airbus planes JetBlue makes use of for its service to and from New York.
The proposal is just not going over effectively with its neighbors, who argue the present variety of flights is greater than sufficient.
“On the weekends, you may as effectively be at LaGuardia,” mentioned Susan Brita, one other longtime resident who lives on Lewis Bay. “The noise is terrible.”
Airport supervisor Katie Servis has heard the skeptics, together with once they level out the sharp decline in air site visitors. “Yeah, they’re declining,” she acknowledged. “We’re making an attempt to appropriate that.”
The airport is within the midst of the allowing course of, and if it will get environmental and different approvals, the early groundwork on the mission would start subsequent yr, with the extension of the runway itself not scheduled till 2028.
The enlargement does have some native assist, however Servis mentioned the mission has a much more influential backer: the Federal Aviation Administration, which is offering a few of the funding as a result of it considers the Cape Cod airport an essential part of the nationwide airport transportation system. The 900-foot extension would deliver the runway nearer to FAA requirements.
“It’s not me, it isn’t the Cape Cod group, it’s not the Barnstable City Council. It’s the FAA saying that there’s an essential side to this airport,” mentioned Servis. “Thus, we should protect it.”
Industrial passenger site visitors to Hyannis is down a staggering 93 % since 2007, to fewer than 30,000 passengers final yr. In the meantime, almost half of all flights to Hyannis final yr have been non-public or constitution, up from one in 4 a decade in the past.
Even at lowered numbers, the airport supplies a vital service for some locals. Folks use it for fast journeys to Boston and New York, whereas Boston Medflight makes use of it to move individuals to trauma facilities.
Ron Foster, normal supervisor of Marine House Middle, mentioned the house enchancment retailer on Nantucket couldn’t function with out the Hyannis airport. Each workday, the shop flies about 30 staff over to Nantucket, with 4 flights within the morning and 4 within the afternoon. It’s the one method to deal with the surging price and slim availability of housing on the island, he mentioned.
Regardless of the associated fee, he wants staff. “So we fly them over day-after-day,” mentioned Foster.
However small airports and the regional carriers which are on the core of their site visitors have been hit arduous by rising prices and a nationwide pilot scarcity. Two airways pulled out over time, Colgan Air in 2010 and Island Airways in 2016, leaving longtime stalwart Cape Air and Jet Blue with seasonal flights to New York as the one scheduled service.
Furthermore, there’s a simple bus service on the Cape to the better flight choices at T.F. Inexperienced Worldwide Airport in Windfall and Boston Logan Worldwide Airport. Even the rise of low-cost quick ferries to Nantucket and Martha’s Winery has sapped demand from individuals who used to fly to the islands.
The airport is owned by the city of Barnstable however doesn’t depend on native taxes; just a little greater than half of its present $25 million annual finances comes from different authorities sources and far of the remaining from earnings on its providers.
Servis argues the airport is just not a giant burden on the native tax base, however fairly an financial pressure on the Cape, supporting 1,700 jobs on the airport and related companies with a payroll of $73 million and almost $160 million in financial output. It additionally receives earnings from leasing a 27-acre parcel to developer WS Growth for retail and parking offers with the Steamship Authority.
Cape Air, which has been a tenant on the airport since its inception in 1989, has seen all of the ups and downs. Its company workplace is positioned on the Hyannis airfield, however the provider has survived the ever-changing economics of the airline business by including regional flights as far afield because the Caribbean and Montana. Its busiest service is between Nantucket and Boston, skipping over Hyannis altogether.
“We’d wish to be doing extra air service out of Hyannis,” mentioned Cape Air chief government Linda Markham. “Hopefully, sometime, we can get again to the place we have been.”
Nonetheless, the proposed enlargement has some questioning who the airport is basically for, and some even float the long-shot thought of mixing it with the airfield on Joint Base Cape Cod and redeveloping the Hyannis property for much-needed housing.
“They’re subsidizing the airport’s potential to operate, however operate for what?” mentioned Betty Ludtke, who was the lone member of the Barnstable City Council to not assist the enlargement. “Some seasonal service to New York? I don’t know.”
Ludtke is a business airline pilot and spent 30 years within the Air Drive. She labored on base realignments and closures. She’s seen this earlier than.
“This isn’t the sky is falling,” Ludtke mentioned. “That is executed when missions notice precisely when adjustments occur, you realign your property. You don’t attempt to save them.”
Tony Shepley, president of Shepley Wooden Merchandise, who typically flies staff to the islands on Cape Air, mentioned the car parking zone is sort of all the time empty every time he drives by the airport.
“So right here we have now this $40 million stunning airport. It’s actually fairly underused,” he mentioned. “It’s such a disgrace.”
The fact, Shepley mentioned, is that flying out of the Cape has change into too costly for lots of the individuals who reside there. The typical roundtrip ticket out of Hyannis —together with in the course of the slower low season — is $255, for a flight that doesn’t go very far, in accordance with the Bureau of Transportation.
And, to the neighbors, the airport is especially a nuisance, one they concern will solely get greater if the runway expands. The planes flying over shouldn’t be going over a small seaside village, mentioned Linda Bolliger, who leads the Hyannis Park Civic Affiliation.
Residents sitting on a again patio in Hyannis Park on a latest afternoon mentioned the affect of the fixed roar of the airplanes flying overhead.
“I’ve undoubtedly considered transferring,” mentioned Steve Budreau, who lives in Hyannis Park. “Being retired, I don’t need to take heed to this for the remainder of my life. And I need to get out of right here earlier than the worth of my property begins tanking.”
On listening to that, Budreau’s neighbor, Paul Harkins, mentioned to him: “It’s too unhealthy. You find it irresistible right here.”
