Hanscom flight limit delays airline's start

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent, 1/27/2002

BEDFORD - Boston-Maine Airways' plans to begin service in March at Hanscom Field are on hold because the airport is nearing the limit of 48 commercial flights a day mandated by a 1995 environmental study.

Boston-Maine, which had planned to start service from Hanscom to Atlantic City in March, and to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket beginning in April, has been told by the Massachusetts Port Authority that its service depends on operating certificate approvals and an environmental review of commercial flight operations.

This marks the first time since commercial service recommenced at Hanscom in September 1999 that a carrier has been affected by the limit.

In a Jan. 22 letter to John Nadolny, senior vice president of Boston-Maine, Barbara Patzner, Hanscom's airport director, asked the airline to forward to Massport copies of all operating certificates for review.

With the number of daily commercial flights here approaching 48, due to upcoming expanded service by Shuttle America, an environmental review is called for, Patzner noted.

''Because we are close to reaching 24 daily departures with Shuttle America and would surpass the previously analyzed level of activity with your proposed service, Massport has begun the environmental review,'' Patzner wrote.

The environmental review is a resumption of a process that started last summer and was suspended after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Richard Walsh, a Massport spokesman, said he did not know how long it will take to conduct the environmental study. But it is unlikely, he said, that Boston-Maine will be able to follow through with its plans to launch one round trip a day to Atlantic City, starting March 3.

Dan Fortnam, marketing vice president of Boston-Maine, said, ''We have questions for Massport about the environmental review. We didn't think the review would be triggered until the number of daily flights at Hanscom exceeded 48.

''We have our wheels in motion, and we are not going to change [plans].''

Boston-Maine, an affiliate of Pan American Airways, based in Portsmouth, N.H., still intends to operate two round trips a day, beginning the third week in April, to both Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, he said.

For that to happen, though, the airline would have to have an operating contract with Massport, which would have to alter the 48 flights-a-day threshold. Officials of Concord, Lexington, Lincoln, and Bedford, along with activist groups, strongly support a lid being kept on commercial flight operations.

''No legitimate environmental study could possibly sanction even one more flight [at Hanscom],'' asserted Anna Winter, executive director of Save Our Heritage, a Concord-based historic preservation group. ''Whatever review process Massport chooses to invent, we and others will continue to vigorously oppose all commercial aviation at Hanscom Field.''

Save Our Heritage has been battling Shuttle America since the airline, based in Windsor Locks, Conn., began serving Hanscom in September 1999. Opposition centers on what Save Our Heritage contends will be adverse environmental effects on the area's numerous historic landmarks, such as Minute Man National Park and Walden Pond.

The Hanscom Field Advisory Commission is also worried about the effects of an accelerated flight schedule at Hanscom, said its chairman, Sheldon Moll, a Bedford selectman.

''That's why we think it's encouraging that Massport is sticking to its agreement'' to conduct another environmental review if the 48-flight limit is threatened, Moll said. ''However, I have no idea how thorough or inclusive the new study will be.''

Meanwhile, Shuttle America is still planning to resume its service to New York's LaGuardia Airport on Feb. 11, with six round trips daily, and to operate five daily round trips to Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., starting March 4.

For the last three months, the airline, which is emerging from bankruptcy, has been operating as US Airways Express, with seven round trips daily to Trenton, N.J., and five round trips to Philadelphia. Shuttle America has a marketing agreement with US Airways.

Despite a hold being put on its Hanscom plans, Fortnam said Boston-Maine is continuing discussions about leasing space at Hanscom from Shuttle America, the airfield's only commercial aviation tenant.

Boston-Maine, which received an operating certificate last month from the Federal Aviation Administration, currently offers 14 flights a day between three Maryland cities under a program subsidized by that state, Fortnam said. It also has an FAA contract to fly agency technicians to Atlantic City.

The airline comes under the umbrella of Pan American, the once-flagship carrier that was acquired for $30 million in a bankruptcy sale four years ago, and Guilford Transportation Industries, owner of the Maine Central and Boston & Maine railroads.

Timothy Mellon, scion of the Pittsburgh banking-industrial family, is bankrolling the Guilford ventures.

Pan American now serves nine markets, including Portsmouth, N.H., and Worcester, with its seven Boeing 727 jets, Fortnam said, adding that there are 24 flights a day to those markets.

''There's not another airline that's in better shape today, compared to a year ago, than Pan American,'' Fortnam said. He declined to reveal annual revenues.

If Boston-Maine gets clearance to fly from Hanscom, its 10 19-seat turboprop planes would initially fly from Atlantic City to Hanscom, going on to Portsmouth, N.H., and then reversing course to Hanscom and Atlantic City, Fortnam said.

''We want to serve as many small, underutilized airports as possible,'' Fortnam said. ''And with Pan American as the model, we have the experience to do that.''

This story ran on page N1 of the Boston Globe on 1/27/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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