Avelo Pushes Earliest Flight Times To 6:30 A.M.

Morris Cove neighbors will get a half-hour reprieve from morning airplane noises starting on Thursday, as Avelo Airlines pushes back its earliest daily from 6 to 6:30 a.m.

That scheduling change is included in a voluntary agreement that the new budget airline struck with the city and the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority back on June 28. 

It comes as Avelo, which first made New Haven its ​“East Coast” hub last November, has grown its local commercial air business to include nonstop flights to 14 different communities, including Orlando, Tampa Bay, Nashville, Savannah, Charleston, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Raleigh. 

The scheduling change also comes soon after the airport authority inked a new 43-year lease and development agreement with Avports, a private airport management company that plans to invest $100 million in extending the runway and building a new, larger terminal on the East Haven side of the property.

To quote directly from the June 28 agreement, which can be read in full here, starting on Thursday:

• No flight will be scheduled to depart earlier than 6:30 a.m.

• No flight will take off earlier than 6:30 a.m. – even if fully boarded and cleared for takeoff.

• No flight will push back from the gate earlier than 6:15 a.m.

• The APU [Auxiliary Power Unit] will not be turned on for any aircraft earlier than 6:10 a.m.

“While a half an hour might seem insignificant, in the aviation world, it’s everything,” Tweed New Haven Airport Authority Executive Director Sean Scanlon told the Independent in a Wednesday phone interview. ​“A half hour is a big deal for someone flying to vacation or flying to a business meeting.”

For Avelo to ​“hear the mayor and I,” Scanlon said, and for them ​“to be responsive to concerns” about disruptive early morning flight noises, is a good example of Avelo acting as a responsible corporate citizen.

Scanlon stressed that the new departure times slated to take effect on Thursday mean that ​“there will be no flight scheduled to depart earlier than 6:30, and no flight will take off earlier than 6:30, even if fully boarded and cleared for take off.” 

Asked how many Avelo planes per day are currently flying into and out of Tweed, Scanlon said it really depends on the day. ​“The most we have on a day is 14 arrivals and 14 departures.”

Click here for an article by the New Haven Register’s Mark Zaretsky about an airport- and city-hosted public meeting at Nathan Hale School on June 28 — the same day that Avelo committed to changing its departure times to accommodate neighbor concerns. At that meeting, East Shore and East Haven residents criticized the increased air traffic at Tweed for disruptively loud early morning and late night flights and exacerbating air pollution.

Latest Scheduled Departure: 10 P.M.; Latest Scheduled Arrival: 11 P.M.

The key terms of the Avelo-Tweed agreement set to take effect on Thursday pertain to early departure times. The deal also includes terms concerning late-night departures and other matters related to airplane noise.

Avelo Airlines CEO Andrew Levy wrote in that June 28 letter that, effective immediately, Avelo will follow these guidelines:

• Aircraft engines will not be started until an aircraft has pushed back from the gate and is cleared to taxi for takeoff.

• Avelo will taxi aircraft on a single engine when operationally feasible.

• The Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) will be turned off upon arriving at the gate and power to the aircraft will instead be provided utilizing ground power sources. The aircraft APU supplies electrical and pneumatic power during pushback from the gate and is necessary to start aircraft engines.

• No flight will be scheduled to depart after 10:00 p.m. Presently, Avelo’s latest departure is
scheduled at 7:45 p.m.

• No flight will be scheduled to arrive after 11:00 p.m.

Later on in the letter, Levy continued:

• We will continue to make efforts to schedule flights to arrive earlier in the evening when possible.

• We will minimize the use of aircraft thrust reversers, whenever operationally possible, to reduce noise impact upon landing. The planned project to lengthen the runway will enable this measure to be used more often and help mitigate noise.

• In addition to three Ground Power Units (GPU), which provide electricity to aircraft, Avelo has invested in three Pre-Conditioned Air (PCA) units, which provide heated or cooled air inside the aircraft cabin. Avelo’s use of GPUs and PCAs minimize APU use — which in turn significantly reduce aircraft noise and emissions at the gate area.