Boston Globe, 1/20/02

Group wants Hanscom flight limit

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent

BEDFORD -- Opponents of commercial flights from Hanscom Field are concerned that expansion plans of Shuttle America and inaugural plans of Boston-Maine Airways will push the number of daily operations over 48, a threshold set by the Massachusetts Port Authority.

Officials of Save Our Heritage, a Concord-based historic preservation group, fired off letters, dated Jan. 2 and Jan. 14, to Jane F. Garvey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, urging the agency to conduct an environmental review before allowing more commercial flights from Hanscom.

Meantime, Massport said it will resume conducting an environmental impact study begun last summer when it appeared that two carriers were exploring service at Hanscom. A 1995 environmental report said 48 total departures and arrivals a day was a reasonable limit.

Shuttle America, a regional carrier that has been serving Hanscom since September 1999 and currently has 22 arrivals and departures a day, announced last week that it is resuming service on Feb. 11 to New York's LaGuardia Airport with six daily round trips, and adding Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., to its flight schedule beginning March 4, with five round trips a day.

Since Oct. 24, the Windsor Locks, Conn.-based airline has been operating from Hanscom as US Airways Express, with six round trips daily to Trenton, N.J., and five round trips to Philadelphia. The airline has a marketing agreement with US Airways.

The newcomer to the Hanscom mix, Boston-Maine Airways, an affiliate of Portsmouth, N.H.-based Pan American Airways, also is planning to serve Westchester County Airport, starting March 3, with three flights a day. Then in the third week of April, it wants to launch two flights a day to Martha's Vineyard and also two daily flights to Nantucket, said Dan Fortman, Boston-Maine's marketing vice president.

The airline has to have an operating agreement with Massport before it can fly from Hanscom. An agreement is now being worked out, Fortman said.

If both the Boston-Maine and Shuttle America plans actually happen, daily commercial arrivals and departures at Hanscom will increase to 58.

A spokesman for Save Our Heritage said the group, which has been aggressively opposing Hanscom commercial flights from the outset, is most worried about Shuttle America stepping up its expansion plans.

"Shuttle America has made it clear that White Plains is only one part of its expansion program for this year," Marty Pepper Aisenberg told those attending last Tuesday night's meeting in Bedford of the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission.

Aisenberg, the group's projects director, wrote one of the letters to the FAA's Garvey. Anna Winter, executive director of Save Our Heritage, wrote the other. Three months ago, the US 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston denied a petition by Save Our Heritage and other parties for a review of expanded commercial aviation activities at Hanscom. Other parties included the towns of Lexington, Lincoln, Concord, and Bedford.

Shuttle America spokesman Mark Cestari, who did not attend the Jan. 15 advisory commission meeting, said later that the airlne "does not contemplate" adding further to its Hanscom schedule -- at least through July.

"We plan to continue operating within the guidelines set by Massport" for a maximum of 48 flights a day at Hanscom, Cestari said. However, he said plans could change if Massport permits more than 48 daily flights.

This article appeared on page 3 of the Boston Globe's NorthWest Weekly section on January 20, 2002. ==========
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