Thomas Breen file photo
At Tweed for Avelo's first flight to Puerto Rico, last November.
Tweed’s operators are looking to keep in place for another three years temporary office, ticketing, and passenger waiting trailer buildings on the New Haven side of the airport property, as they continue to try to relocate the terminal to a new larger permanent structure on the East Haven side.
Avports spokesperson Andrew King broached those plans last Thursday night during a special online meeting of the City Plan Commission.
King, representing the airport management company that runs the publicly owned Morris Cove regional airport, pitched commissioners on a new Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance (FDPO) variance for the airport.
That variance would allow for, as the meeting’s agenda put it, “improvements to the West ramp facilities at Tweed Airport” to remain in place for another three years.
The commission did not take a vote on the variance application during Thursday meeting. Instead, the commissioners voted unanimously to host a public hearing on the application online on Sept. 25 at 6 p.m.
The airport last secured this very same FDPO relief in 2021. That was right when the budget airline Avelo made New Haven its East Coast hub and kicked off what would become three years of expansion, adding more than two dozen direct flights from New Haven – and enticing a second airline, Breeze, to come in and try to compete for Tweed airplane customers.
“We added a couple of buildings between the terminals to add additional terminal space, both offices for the airlines and an additional gate area,” King told the commissioners on Thursday. The airport also added a “ticketing trailer” by Tweed’s front entrance, as well as “several storage containers” on the runway side of the airport’s fence.
Under this new variance application, King stressed, the airport would not add or take away any of those existing temporary buildings. Everything would stay as is.
The 2021 permits “had a three-year limitation on them,” King continued, and are set to expire in November. Thus Tweed’s application for another three-year variance.
This extension is designed to give the airport enough time to secure the local, state Department of Energy and Environmental (DEEP), and state Department of Transportation (DOT) permits necessary to build and open up a new larger terminal on the East Haven side of the property.
King said that, regardless of whether or not this variance is granted, the airport will still be moving ahead with building and opening up that new larger terminal on the East Haven side.
This variance renewal application comes after the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) recently granted a key approval for Tweed’s $165 million airport runway and terminal expansion plan, to be undertaken by Avports, a Goldman Sachs-owned company.
And what would happen if the commission didn’t grant this variance? City Plan Commission alternate Carl Goldfield asked.
“The impact to the airport and neighborhood,” King said, is that “we would lose about 60 percent of our terminal passenger capacity” while continuing to operate at the same levels of airplane traffic. A lot more passengers would be “waiting in the elements” outside as they wait for their flights, instead of indoors. “It would drastically impact the operation of the airport.”
City Plan Director Laura Brown explained to the commissioners that it was up to them to decide whether or not to host a public hearing on this application. She cited 30 written requests from Morris Cove neighbors and others for a public hearing. Those requests raised concerns about everything from air and noise pollution to increased flooding to worker safety in the temporary structures to a need for transparency in regards to the airport’s operations.
Ultimately, the commissioners agreed to host a public hearing on the matter, and set the date for Sept. 25.