CITY OF NEW HAVEN TONI N. HARP, MAYOR 165 Church Street New Haven, Connecticut 06510 T: 203.946.8200 F: 203.946.7683 SINCE I958 April 28, 2015 Friends and Neighbors, For many years the Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority has worked to improve the physical condition of the airport and attract new commercial service to multiple hub cities providing travelers improved access to more domestic and international destinations. These efforts are extremely important for economic development and job growth in New Haven and all of Southern Connecticut. Tweed-New Haven Airport boasts the twelfth largest catchment area population in the entire Northeastern United States. With nearly 1.4 million residents living closer to Tweed than other surrounding airports, Tweed?s catchment area population is similar to that of the Albany lntemational Airport, Harrisburg lntemational Airport and Lehigh Valley International Airport located in Allentown, PA. In fact, Tweed?s catchment area population exceeds that of several prominent New England airports including Manchester- Boston Regional Airport, which is currently served by Southwest Airlines. All of these airports currently provide better service for their residents than Tweed does for residents of New Haven, enabling these cities to attract economic growth that would otherwise be impossible without access to frequent daily air service. This air service trend at Tweed needs to change for our economy to grow, for our city to compete with its peer communities for high-tech, higher education and health care industries and jobs, and for Tweed to provide ease of vacation and holiday travel for all of us who live here today. Many of you will be familiar with a 2009 Memorandum of Agreement which was signed at the time by the Mayors of New Haven and East Haven, the Chair of the Authority and five members of the State Legislature. That document articulated a common vision to build the runway safety areas and drainage improvements, attract air service, initiate a community bene?ts program and establish ?ceilings? and clear parameters for future growth. The MOA is now over five years old and needs to be updated. Let us brie?y summarize key areas for discussion and outline steps for community involvement in this important process. 1. Air service is falling well short of expectations. The MOA established a limit of 30 commercial departures per day and 180,000 commercial enplanements per year. However, Tweed has not attracted a new commercial carrier and service remains well below the established limit. Today, Tweed has four commercial departures per day and below 40,000 enplanements per year. Follow us on Siguenos En I El??i? nu Airport facilities, including the main runway, need to be upgraded to attract new air service. The MOA and a subsequent change to the Connecticut General Statutes set the length of the main runway at 5,600 linear feet. At the time it was thought that the existing runway, enhanced through obstruction removal and the construction of runway safety zones, would lead to new commercial service. However, no new service has materialized to date, because the 5,600? runway remains too short for many modern types of commercial aircraft. It is proposed, therefore, to pave 1,000 feet of the existing safety zone to the south and 500 feet of the existing safety zone to the north of the existing runway. All of this work is entirely within the existing boundary fence and the runway remains within the current Tweed footprint. Depending on the direction that a plane takes off, the effective runway would be either 6,600 feet or 6,100 feet. The additional length will make Tweed more competitive for new commercial air service to places like Washington, Chicago and even Florida. Good neighbor programs must continue. The MOA mandates that Tweed operate as a good neighbor. With Federal, State and City assistance, Tweed has improved the drainage system, built the runway safety areas, initiated a noise mitigation program that identi?ed 189 homes that may be eligible for some form of noise reduction work and has opened its doors for neighborhood input through its Community Advisory Board. It will continue to work on the Shoreline Greenway Trail by providing a right-of?way around the perimeter of the airport for the trail. Going forward, the Community Advisory Board provides an established mechanism to address additional impacts (such as noise and traf?c) as they relate to existing service, and any new serv1ce. To move forward, Tweed and City staff will be meeting with neighbors, community groups and elected of?cials. Details matter to us, as your elected of?cials, and to you as residents of the neighborhood. We will have this conversation together and discuss openly and thoughtfully the future of our airport. The schedule of meetings and further information on this process will be posted on For additional information, please call Tim Larson, Executive Director of the Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority at (203) 466-8833, extension #1 10. Thank you and we look forward to constructive conversations over the - - several weeks. Lu-rr? . Edict?? Toni N. Harp l/ Rosa we Mayor Member of Congress