Northern Hills Homeowner's Association

How to grow an airport

Jan 31, 2001

Concord Journal
Lexington Minuteman
January 25, 2001

How to grow an airport

Imagine you own an airport and want to grow it, despite objections from the neighboring communities. How could you do it without stirring up too much fuss? The answer is gradually, in small increments. Maybe this is unfair.
Maybe even sneaky. But people object less to small changes than to big
ones. Even if the changes aren't so small, as long as you haven't disclosed
your full intentions, people might believe that, after all, a change here
and there doesn't really matter.

Take, for example, Hanscom Field. You have your CEO come to a public
meeting and reassure worried citizens that Hanscom wil remain "a general
aviation airport," just as Peter Blute proclaimed at Rep. Jay Kaufman's
Lexington forum. Later, you don't tell anybody, but you file an
anpplication with the FAA to change the airport's certification, so that it
can take passenger aircraft of any size. This is a radical change, but you
reassure the alarmed public that it is just a few flights. Meanwhile,
behind the scenes you plan for growth. You lobby for Hanscom-New York
flights. In the blink of an eye Hanscom is up to 32 scheduled commercial
passenger operations daily; that's 10,000 more flight operations and 100,000
more cars on local roads each year. You tell the public not to worry; this
is just a little more traffic on Route 2A and the historic Battle Road.

Meanwhile, the airline talks of adding more destinations. Not that it is
exactly a roaring success -- in December alone 18 percent of its flights
were canceled.

Suppose you have no terminal suitable for handling passengers. You
"renovate" and remodel: create a nice lobby with ticket counters, force out
from the ground floor some offices that have been there for years, add food
service facilities and, of course, better air-conditioning, nicer windows,
and more restrooms. Now your parking lot is too small, so you enlarge,
resurface, and re-stripe it. You add rental car services and arrange for
buses and limousines.

Could all this be preparation for the use of the terminal by several
airlines, you are asked? Oh, no, you say, there are no plans for that.

You keep doing a little here and there. You move the small private planes
even further away from the terminal. You resurface the runways so they're
ready to take heavier loads more frequently. Just routine maintenance, you
say. Maybe you "rehabilitate" the terminal ramp, because after all
passenger aircraft come closer to the temrinal than the private planes used
to do.

You spend some money on apron "restoration," lets say, $1.3 million.

In May 2000 you quietly plan the expansion of the shorter of the two runways
at Hanscom, but you only present this development to the Hanscom Field
Advisory Commission (HFAC) in December, shortly before your report is to be
filed with the FAA. You are lengthening the runway at the FAA's request,
you say. Just a little extension of the safety zone, you say. Let's see
now, is the expanded runway required now because you let in all those
passenger planes you told us would never fly here? Hmmm . . . have planes
been flying on an unsafe runway already, or are you upgrading the safety of
the airport to accommodate new kinds of planes in the future? Just
wondering.

If your runway extension goes through, it will involve relocating historic
Virginia Road. (Of course, ignore additional noise and traffic intrusion
into Minute Man National Historical Park.) A major hill will be torn down.
Maybe this would permit instrumentation landing equpment on the runway,
which now handles only visual aproach operations. And maybe, once the hill
is gone and the road is relocated, the runway could be extended even more.
Bigger runways, bigger planes.

Neat.

Here's a modest suggestion. If the FAA really wanted that longer safety
zone, you could have saved a lot of federal money (assuming you really plan
to continue to use the shorter runway just for small planes) by shortening a
little the takeoff zone of this 5,106-foot runway and by not repaving till
you had the plan squared away.

Independently, the FAA just happened to decide to build a new control tower
at the airport, one that is bigger and can accommodate more flight control
staff. Just a coincidence, of course.

Meanwhile, continue to deny that Federal Express is planning to bring cargo
flights into Hanscom. Of course, leaks do happen. In this month's Boston
Magazine, an inquisitive Boston reporter quotes a Massport spokesman, who
"confirms" that "They have been in touch with us on and off since 1993.
We're in one of the 'on' periods now." Still, just keep reassuring the
communities.

But wait a moment, maybe all these changes at Hanscom are not enough.
Obviously you should undertake a new Airport Planning Study! We notice on
your website that you have allocated the tidy sum of $500,000 for a nice
little study on the future of Hanscom.
(www.bostonloganairport.com/cp_construction/projectedprojects.asp)

But, shhh, HFAC and HATS, the two committees sanctioned by the legislature
to monitor what is going on at Hanscom, have yet to be told about it.

Beware, however; some watchful citizens might notice. Since Watergate they
have learned to "follow the money." Adding together the bid requests on
your website, they have figured out that you plan to contract out something
like $14 million at Hanscom for "improvements" in the next few years.

Just one last thought, Massport. Any chance you are thinking of creating
your own little LaGuardia here? After all, Hanscom has more acreage than
LaGuardia, has two runways like LaGuardia, and is just 15 miles from Boston.
How better to accomplish this than by doing, well, just what you are doing?
Little by little.

If you want to grow an airport, take a lesson from Massport. They have
shown repeatedly that it is not as hard as you might think. Just go at it
quietly and gradually, try to keep the folks asleep, and before you know it,
you may get your way.

-- Submitted by Rae Andre of Lexington, Julian Bussgang of Lexington, Bill
Byam of Bedford, Ruth Chappell of Concord and John Petty of Lincoln.