Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump flight restrictions won’t change, officials say
Airport businesses better get used to the costs and inconvenience of having President Donald Trump in town.
The Secret Service isn’t going to help, said U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach.
The federal agency said Monday it won’t budge on flight restrictions in South Florida even though
some businesses are effectively shut down each time Trump arrives in Palm Beach County, according to Frankel and U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton.
“Restrictions are going to stay as they are — as they told us today very clear,” Frankel said, citing information she said was provided by the agency Monday. “It is not fair, but we got our answer today from the Secret Service.”
But Deutch said the federal government still should expedite financial help to Palm Beach County because businesses have had to suspend operations.
“The president loves to come down here. The president loves to golf here,” Deutch said. “But the citizens of Palm Beach County, the taxpayers down here, shouldn’t have to foot the bill for security every time the president chooses to come down.”
Trump has so far visited Mar-a-Lago, his oceanfront retreat in Palm Beach, for four of the weekends he has been in office. While commercial airline traffic in South Florida isn’t disrupted when he visits, the restrictions have affected smaller aviation operations, Palm Beach County officials say.
Because Lantana Airport is shut down when Trump is in town, it has caused the businesses there to lose revenue, officials say. The airport employs nearly 400 people, and more than 350 airplanes are based there.
Monday’s meeting with the Secret Service was in the works for a month. Frankel said in February she would meet with the agency to push for changes that could allow Lantana Airport to operate at least on a limited basis during presidential visits. She has heard from business owners who said they fear they wouldn’t be able to stay open.
Frankel said it’s unlikely the airport’s 28 businesses could get direct reimbursement from the federal government. She suggested they negotiate rent reductions with Palm Beach County, which owns the airport, and that the county then seek reimbursement. The county is already seeking $1.7 million to pay for extra security costs incurred by Trump’s visits, and that tab is growing.
“It’s just not right that this small group of people, some of them are going to go out of business, some of them are taking very big hits financially,” Frankel said.
When Trump is in town, operations at about a dozen airports from Pompano Beach to Stuart also are affected. Certain aircraft — such as banner-towing operations, sightseeing planes and flight training — are grounded within a 30-nautical-mile ring of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach during his visits.
Marian Smith, owner of Palm Beach Flight Training in Lantana, said her flight school has been able to only make flights one weekend this year and lost nearly $36,000 in February due to restrictions.
The school offers training for private and commercial pilot certifications and also contracts with local colleges.
“We spend all week booking the schedule up only to find out on Tuesday or Wednesday that there’s a restriction,” Smith said. “So basically our business is totally shut down when he’s here.”
In other matters, the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday said four private aircraft violated restricted airspace around Mar-a-Lago this past weekend. Overall, there have been more than 30 violations of the airspace since last month. Aviation experts say it’s standard for pilots to need time to get used to the new rules.