Aviation Industry Warns East Hampton Town Officials: Airport Closure Won't Work

Aviation industry advocates this week said that they do not believe that East Hampton Town’s proposal to close East Hampton Airport for 33 hours in mid-May and re-open it as a legally “new” airport will free the town from Federal Aviation Administration control and the limitations placed on other airports’ ability to regulate flights.

A group of industry associations this week penned a letter to the Town Board warning that they do not see how the town’s proposal could exact the kind of legal changes the town claims. The group renewed a plea for the town to abandon the approach and take up substantive negotiations with the industry and the FAA to develop enforceable flight limits to reduce noise.

Federal regulations and even, perhaps, the FAA’s own reticence to make pledges about things it does not have laid out in detail, could be leading the town on a path of folly in trying to adopt restrictions that it plans to impose when the new East Hampton Airport is activated on the morning of May 19, a spokesman for the group of aviation business associations said this week.

“We understand that the town has been in communication with the Federal Aviation Administration regarding the logistics of how the town might close/deactivate HTO and then open a ‘new’ airport, but that the FAA has not opined on whether doing so would necessarily provide the town the ‘local control’ that its external counsel has claimed would follow,” the letter from the six aviation organizations reads, referring to East Hampton Airport’s aviation call sign, KHTO. “It is our understanding that despite the logistically risky conversion process to allegedly private-use status, the town would not gain the ability to implement a Prior Permission Required program and thus would not be able to institute desired restrictions.”

The town plans to officially close the airport at midnight on May 17 and re-open it at 9 a.m. on May 19. Town officials and their attorneys have said that the FAA has specifically told them that doing so will allow the town to legally reclassify the airport from public to private, and allow the town to adopt a “prior permission required,” or PPR, system of managing flights at the airport.

The town says it plans to adopt a package of limitations on various types of flights — helicopters and commercial charters are seen as the top targets — in an effort to tamp down the volume of air traffic in general and nudge what remains toward quieter operations. The new rules are expected to be introduced some time next month, but consultants recently presented recommendations for overnight curfews, a limit of just one flight per day for a given aircraft and a complete ban on the largest of the large private jets. The rules have been met by complaints from both aviators and residents.

Since 2015, the town has been almost continuously battling the FAA and aviation groups over the power to regulate flights at the airport. As a public airport, HTO is bound by federal guidelines that essentially prevent it from turning away any flights — like a privately owned airport or airstrip can. But with the expiration last September of 20-year obligations from federal grants, the town does have the power to close the airport, permanently if it chooses. Instead, the town’s attorneys — purportedly with the guidance of FAA officials — devised a strategy to create a new airport and change the rules while not closing it permanently.

But the industry associations say they do not think the town will get very far.

Because the infrastructure remains and the leases to the land will still be held by the same entity — the town — simply closing the facility for a few days will not change the status of the airport under the overarching federal law governing airports, known as the Airport Noise and Capacity Act.

“While the grant assurances have expired, there are statutory obligations that run in perpetuity while the airport continues to be open. A paper closure, or whatever you want to call it, doesn’t extinguish those obligations,” Alex Gertsen, director of the National Business Aviation Association, one of the groups that sent the letter to the town, said. “When I talk to the FAA, they say they have not provided any guidance that restrictions can be put in place. The town has not submitted anything about the [new rules] to the FAA. The town hasn’t come out and said, ‘This is what we are going to do’ so the FAA hasn’t commented. It’s when they put the restrictions in that it will get complicated.”

Whether these issues are something that could be sprung on the town by the FAA once the new rules are adopted, or whether it’s something that will require a lawsuit from opponents of the rules and a legal interpretation, remains to be seen, Gertsen said.

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said that the frequent discussions with the FAA have led the town’s attorneys and Town Board members to believe firmly that they can, in fact, make the planned transition and adopt rules limiting flights.

“The FAA has said that the temporary closure and reactivation will extinguish those rights — we’re following their pathway,” Van Scoyoc said, nodding to a November 2020 letter from FAA officials that laid out a number of options the town had once the grant assurances expired — and introduced the idea of a temporary closure and reclassification of the airport. “It spelled out options for the town, and we’ve relied on that in our decision making.”

Gersen said his organization has applauded the current Town Board for not giving in to those calling for an immediate and complete closure of the airport and trying to find a way to balance impacts on those living around the airport and other airports that could see spikes in traffic if HTO closed.

The aviation groups have argued that a well-organized and comprehensive effort at negotiating new restrictions, in conjunction with FAA, would be a better way to develop impactful and enforceable limitations.

“We commend the town in recognizing the airport is valuable to the town, the community, the eastern end of Long Island,” Gertsen said. “We need to change the balance so it can be more compatible and recognizing that diversions are going to impact other communities. We want this to be successful in a way that they are able to make changes so that we can arrive at that new concept.”

The town’s attorneys have warned that negotiated rules may not carry universal enforceability, and Van Scoyoc said the latest pitch from the aviation industry doesn’t carry a lot of water.

“If they doubt that this is going to change anything, then why are they so adamant about us not taking this course,” he quipped. “I hope they are wrong. Because if this is an issue and we again find we can’t control the airport, then the risk of it permanently closing rises exponentially.”