Oahu aviators feel for Lantana peers

Flight restrictions for Trump’s visits reflect Obama’s in Hawaii.

When Barack Obama vac ationed on the island of Oahu, in his native Hawaii, temporary flight restrictions — TFRs — severely hampered small plane traffic and commerce at Honolulu International Airport and two municipal airports.

“L e n g t hy i s l a n d -wi d e T F R di srupting training ... thanks Obama!” one person posted in a 2013 newsletter of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

The comment should sound familiar to people affected by restrictions the Secret Service has imposed on Palm Beach County airports for when President Donald Trump stays at his Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago mansion.

While the disruptions have been financially painful in both tropical paradises, aviation firms in Hawaii suffered less, for two important reasons.

First, Obama vac ationed in Oahu nine times in eight years. Trump has been president for five weekends, and currently is spending his third weekend in a row at Mar-a-Lago; he also visited as president-elect for longer periods during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

S e c o nd, most o f t he t i mes Obama visited Hawaii, he stayed in the Kailua area on the east side of Oahu. That placed all three airports outside a 10-mile zone of heavy restrictions.

Palm Beach International Airport, and to an even more damaging extent, the Lantana airport, haven’t been as lucky.

By edict of the U.S. Secret Service, any time the president is at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, a package of flight restrictions is in place. The restrictions effectively shut down the Lantana airport and impose strict limits at other Palm Beach County airports that include requiring small plane pilots be cleared by authorities at other airports before they fly in. Aviation businesses at PBIA and the county’s three general aviation airports say Trump’s Who is affected by Mar-a-Lago flight restrictions,