Three entities continue to seek a preliminary injunction to prevent the planned May 17 closure of the East Hampton Airport and its reopening two days later under strict new rules.
As reported last week, passengers of Blade Air Mobility, which allows users of its app to book seats on scheduled helicopter and airplane flights, will fly “into or out of other sites on the East End” if the aircraft they are taking to the Hamptons is prohibited from landing at the airport, company officials said. Based on an online survey of its users’ travel preferences, the company said they will fly instead to Montauk Airport, “seaplane landing zones” in Gardiner’s Bay and Peconic Bay, and sites in Southampton, Mattituck, and Westhampton Beach.
The Coalition to Keep East Hampton Airport Open and East End Hangars have also petitioned New York State Supreme Court to prevent the airport closure. Last week, five people named in the East End Hangars petition renewed their effort to stop the town’s plan.
That plan, according to Thomas Bogdan, Joseph Dryer, Suse Lowenstein, Lynden Restrepo, and Louise Sasso, all of Montauk, “will irrevocably damage the local economy, threaten medical and emergency services accessibility, increase traffic to surrounding regions, and further harm the quality of life for Montauk and the rest of the East End’s residents.” Mr. Bogdan has been a particularly vocal critic of the town’s plan, warning of diversion of aircraft to Montauk’s small, privately owned airport near the end of East Lake Drive.
The town, they charge, “consistently misconstrues the impact that the plan’s prior permission-required framework will have on the safety of airport operations and the quality of life in the East End region.” They “implore the town to desist from burdening residents of Montauk and the East End with noise and traffic, and reconsider this reckless, dangerous, and illegal close and reopen strategy.”
Also last week, Curtis Air Taxi and Jobs Lane Aviation petitioned the federal Department of Transportation for an emergency declaratory order preventing the town’s plan. “The vast majority” of Curtis Air Taxi’s charter business originates or terminates at East Hampton Airport, the petition states, with two of its three aircraft based there year round and the third based there seasonally. Jobs Lane Aviation owns and bases one aircraft at the airport “and routinely utilizes” the airport including a hangar leased on a long-term basis from East End Hangars.
The town’s plan would violate provisions of the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 and the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, the petitioners assert. “The town’s “transparent gamesmanship cannot subvert the will of Congress in adopting ANCA,” they write. “The statute and implementing regulations lay out the exclusive means by which a public airport proprietor may impose noise-based and other access restrictions upon aircraft; closure is not among them.”
The East Hampton Town Board formally amended the town code last Thursday to recognize the “new” East Hampton Town Airport as a publicly owned, private use facility, requiring prior permission for takeoffs or landings.
The airport — the object of many residents’ ire and complaints from as far as New York City over frequent flyovers and noisy aircraft such as helicopters and jets, especially during the summer — is to close on May 17 at 11:59 p.m. and reopen on May 19 at 9 a.m., with the prior-permission-required rule in place.
The rule will limit aircraft operators to one takeoff and one landing per day, impose other restrictions based on the size and noise of aircraft, and limit aircraft operations to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday through Sunday and on federal holidays. According to the town’s airport consultants, the curfews and restrictions will impact around 40 percent of aircraft operations while addressing upward of 70 percent of complaints.
Also last Thursday, the town board voted to issue a final outline of an environmental impact statement to consider the long-term operation of the “new” airport. Implementing a prior-permission-required program is a discretionary action with potential environmental effects, and thus is subject to the state’s Environmental Quality Review Act requiring the town to conduct a thorough environmental review and examine alternatives prior to taking action.
The town plans to collect data during the summer season, which will include data on operations at all affected airports as well as on road traffic.
