Westchester County Airport Officials Hear Public's Thoughts on Long-Term Strategy

Westchester County Airport officials got the ball rolling on the input gathering leg of their master plan creation process during Wednesday’s public meeting at the Westchester County Center in White Plains.

The meeting was the first one held since officials began the process of creating a new master plan, or long-term strategy, for the airport. The airport’s last master plan was created in 1980 and updated in 1987.

The FAA, or Federal Aviation Administration, requires that public-use airports keep their master plans current. Airport officials said the process is necessary in order to ensure the facility is viable, safe, efficient and able to keep pace with changes in the aviation industry.

Officials hope to have the plan completed by early next year.

“The Federal Aviation Administration has an advisory circular, which is kind of like of guideline manual on how they’d like to see master plans conducted,” said David Kvinge, director of environmental planning at the Westchester County Department of Planning. “It’s not a strict requirement, but it provides guidance and we’re following along for the most part. We’re really at step one, which is taking an inventory of existing conditions. We’re still collecting data on the airport and collecting information from all the stakeholders. That’s why we’re having this meeting.”

The airport, which opened in 1945, sits on 700 acres in Rye Brook, North Castle and Harrison. It had 1.9 million passengers, 161,109 operations and averaged 441 operations a day in 2012, according to officials. About 46 percent of those operations were corporate, while 34 percent involved general aviation and nearly 20 percent involved airlines.

Officials said the airport directly accounted for nearly 5,000 jobs and indirectly accounted for another 1,382. The airport is believed to generate a total of $735,879,600 in economic activity, according to officials.

In the past, neighbors of the airport have complained about noise and traffic. As part of the master plan, studies will be conducted on environmental issues such as noise and air quality.

John Boyd is director of aircraft sales at  Panorama Flight Service, a fixed-base operator located at the Westchester County Airport. Boyd said there are a number issues he believes will be addressed in the master plan, but the biggest issue he is concerned about is the condition of the airports “short” runway.

“There are two runways at Westchester—16340 and 1129—and 1129 has been shortened over the years because of trees growing at the end, on property owned by the  Sacred Heart Convent [in Greenwich, Conn.],” Boyd said. “That runway in the next two years will be lost.”

Boyd said if that runway stops functioning, all airport operation will be moved to one runway and operations will slow down. A number of operators currently at the airport will leave due to lack of capacity, Boyd said.

“Hundreds of jobs will be lost and the airline business—everything—will be affected,” Boyd said.

Steve Ferguson, assistant manager at the county airport, said the facility has received a $200,000 grant from the FAA to study the realignment of the runway so that it’s bordered on both ends by county property.

“The study should be completed in the next two months or so,” Ferguson said. “The study is almost complete and it’s in a couple draft forms.”

The runway realignment study will be incorporated in the master plan once it’s completed, Ferguson said.

Kvinge said the next step in the process is to do a forecast studying traffic activity for the next 20 years, demand capacity and facility requirements.