Carafora stands ground amid possible Tweed plan

NEW HAVEN — Tweed New Haven Regional Airport’s master plan will include options to extend the 5,600-foot main runway by more than 1,000 feet and build a new terminal — and possible new entrance — on the East Haven side — prompting East Haven Mayor Joe Carfora to call for protection and a greater voice for his residents.

“The expansion of this airport must not be placed solely on our backs of my constituents, and too often it seems as though everyone overlooks that,” Carfora said Thursday night at a second-round public meeting on Tweed’s federally mandated master plan update. “It’s simply not going to happen. Our quality of life will be impacted, and it matters.”

Tweed is owned by New Haven but straddles the border between the two municipalities, with much of it located in East Haven.

Airport consultants rejected the idea of proposing an even longer runway, however, saying it was not feasible at Tweed, which is “hemmed-in” by residential neighborhoods on several sides.

Dozens of people joined Tweed officials and consultants for the meeting, which took place online because of pandemic restrictions.

The options presented Thursday — not yet set in stone — barely mentioned how to get to the airport, which officials say is likely to be through a new front entrance on the East Haven side.

“Nothing has been decided. We have made no decisions,” Tweed Executive Director Sean Scanlon told about 100 people who were online at the time. The meeting lasted about 21⁄

2 hours.

An additional meeting is expected to take place in March, after which the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority will vote on a final version of the master plan update, Scanlon said.

The only point at which the future entrance was discussed was in a graphic diagram shown at one point, but Scanlon said the airport’s future entrance would likely”be off Interstate 95’s Exit 52, with an approach via largely commercial Hemingway Avenue in East Haven rather than the current entrance via more residential Townsend Avenue in New Haven.

More details on that “would be in the final update,” Scanlon said.

A representative of consultant McFarland Johnson, Jeff Wood, said that under Tweed’s constrained conditions, a main runway of 6,635 feet would be the longest feasible “to provide adequate length” for safety and to serve airlines’ needs. The additional 1,035 feet would be available for takeoffs only, he said.

A longer, 7,600-foot runway “is not feasible” at Tweed “for many different reasons,” he said.

For airlines, “reliability is critical” and “longer is more reliable,” Wood said. “We think (a 6,535-foot runway) balances all those needs,” he said. It would be long enough to safely and profitably take off and land even Airbus A320 aircraft in addition to the smaller regional jets now used at Tweed, he said.

Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., serves commercial jets on a 6,549-foot runway, Wood said.

Tweed also needs full parallel taxiways alongside its runways and two additional hangers on its general aviation side, Wood said.

The consultant also presented three options, in addition to a “no build” option, for a new terminal. Two were on the existing (west) side of the airport in the vicinity of the existing terminal and one was on the East Haven side of Tweed. The third alternative was the only one that meets FAA standards, officials said.

The goal with any new terminal would be to serve 200 passengers an hour during peak periods, officials said.

Residents who spoke at different points during the online meeting questioned some of the assumptions, including the speed at which airlines might bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic’s economic downturn.

New Haven neighbor Sean O’Brien said the plan drafted so far “is pretty much what I would have expected the master plan to look like had it been down in 2018 or 2019,” he said. But COVID-19 “has been one of the biggest events” in decades, O’Brien said.

Given the way airlines have been affected, “I’m not sure it makes sense to continue going down this path,” he said.

American, which restored service between Tweed and Philadelphia only this week after curtailing service to Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C., earlier in the pandemic, “is basically just fulfilling the requirements of a bailout,” and it may not remain in New Haven, O’Brien said. “Spending money on this process and continuing down this road basically is just a waste of money.”

Morris Cove resident Claudia Bosch said that “this is the same plan as 2000,” yet “business travel has changed tremendously” in recent months and what the plan forecasts “is not how things will work out.”

Wood said later, however, that “when the economy improves, people will fly for business” and “they also will have more discretionary income to fly for leisure.”

“There’s no denying that the industry has been rocked by COVID,” said Scanlon, also a Democratic state representative representing Guilford and Branford. Figures have been revised to reflect that, he said.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and East Haven Mayor Carfora both attended the meeting.

Elicker, who this fall held his own meeting to address neighborhood concerns about the airport, talked about the need “to find a balance between a highly productive airport and the neighborhood concerns.”

“I think it’s important to have a viable airport,” Elicker said, adding that he believes “the best way is through transparency.”

Carfora said he was aware that the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of the state’s request to consider an appeal of a federal court’s ruling gives Tweed the right to expand. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling cleared the way for runway extension on the grounds that federal policy superseded a 2009 state statute barring runway expansion following a legal settlement between New Haven and East Haven.

“This ruling is not a positive one for my constituents, and one that is of great concern to me,” Carfora said. “There is no doubt that we want to be realistic neighbors,” he said. “But let me be clear, my job is to protect the rights and interests of East Haven residents.

In any future discussions stemming from the master plan, East Haven “must have a substantial seat at the table” and “I will be fighting for jobs for East Haven residents, a union project labor agreement” and other protections “before any ground is broken for a new terminal,” Carfora said.

Tweed’s last master plan, which the Federal Aviation Administration approved in 2002, expressed an intention to eventually lengthen the 5,600-foot main runway to 7,200 feet. It also envisioned growing to 30 flights a day and 180,000 annual boardings.

Seventeen years later, the runway remains at 5,600 feet.