New York’s Stewart International Airport is expected to get busier in the coming years, after the Port Authority’s Board of Commissioners signed two agreements last month aimed at bringing more private jets to the Orange airfield County, located about 50 miles north of New York. City.
The move comes as the use of private jets increases globally due to a surge in demand among businesses and affluent travelers following the COVID-19 pandemic, and represents a strategy by the agency New York-New Jersey transportation network to capitalize on this trend. The deals have support from some local lawmakers and business leaders, who say welcoming more private jets to Stewart could generate economic gains for the area.
“If this is an opportunity for us to use our airport in new and innovative ways and create jobs, I certainly don’t see a problem with it,” said Orange County Legislator Genesis Ramos, a longtime resident of Newburgh whose district includes part of the public and military airport. “This can be a catalyst for other projects.”
“We are so fortunate” for this investment, said New York State Assemblyman Chris Eachus, whose district stretches from Stony Point to the southern half of Stewart.
In May, the Port Authority’s 12-member board voted to authorize the agency to enter into 30-year leases with two development teams — led by Sky Harbor and Aviation Facilities Company — which would build and operate business jet hangars worth at least $119 million. , or “home bases” for aircraft, on 22 currently vacant acres on the north side of the airport. In exchange, the Port Authority would charge more than $43 million in ground rent over the course of the leases, while the hangar operators would make money by renting the space to customers wanting to store and maintain their planes.
The agency aims to finalize leases by this fall and open both facilities by early 2028, according to a staff presentation to the board. Plans call for 15 hangars totaling more than 300,000 square feet, capable of accommodating dozens of private jets.
The Port Authority and New York State have long tried to boost activity at Stewart, one of the region’s smallest airports. But even though it has been billed as a secondary New York City airport, located about a 75-minute drive from Midtown, it still sees far fewer travelers than other local airports, including LaGuardia and JFK. In March, JetBlue Airways announced it would not return to Stewart after a pandemic hiatus, ending service that began there in 2006, when the company proclaimed, “The Hudson Valley on the Horizon.”
The runway at Stewart International Airport in Orange County, New York, photographed from above in 2012.
Tony Shi Photography via Getty Images
Now the Port Authority hopes private jets and their VIP planes will improve the airport’s fortunes. Nationally, the number of flight hours aboard private turbojet planes jumped 33% between 2019 and 2022, according to the latest data from the Federal Aviation Administration. And the world’s major private aircraft manufacturers, including Bombardier and Gulfstream, are reporting significant delays in the production of new planes.
The New York area’s main business jet airports, Morristown and Teterboro in New Jersey, have limited hangar space due to the rise in private flying. The website for Morristown Airport – Taylor Swift’s busiest airport in the region, according to flight tracking data from Flightradar24 – is currently inviting anyone interested in storing a smaller plane there to join the list. ‘waiting. In Teterboro, private plane takeoffs and landings increased 1% last year compared to 2019, according to Port Authority data.
But Stewart Airport has missed out on the corporate flight bonanza so far, according to Port Authority data. Takeoffs and landings of private planes there fell by 8% between 2022 and 2023 and by 11% last year since before the pandemic.
That’s where a developer like Sky Harbor comes in. The Westchester County-based company offers a “residency solution” to private jet owners, whether they are high-net-worth individuals or large corporations, said Neil Szymczak, Sky Harbor’s vice president of real estate. It builds turnkey hangars for rent, then provides tenants with basic maintenance and support services, with rates typically ranging from $32 to $74 per square foot of hangar space.
Sky Harbor executives view Stewart as an ideal location to store private jets, given its vast unused land and proximity to New York City. When an owner needs their plane from one of the company’s planned hangars – which Sky Harbor says could house up to 40 business jets in total, depending on their size – it could be transported by plane to Morristown or Teterboro to pick up passengers and take them away. to their destination.
“Most of the Manhattan-owned planes that fly out of Teterboro and arrive in Teterboro don’t live in Teterboro,” Sky Harbor CEO Tal Keinan said in an interview with financial services firm Motley Fool in March. “They are repositioning themselves because there is no room there. You can’t get hangar space in Teterboro.
I feel like every hedge fund in Midtown Manhattan called us.
Keinan added that “it feels like every hedge fund in Midtown Manhattan has been calling us” about space at Sky Harbor’s other planned facilities in the area — at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Conn., and Hudson Valley Regional Airport near Poughkeepsie — after the company announced plans for them last December. These facilities, which also required land leases from local public authorities, are expected to be completed in 2026, according to Sky Harbour’s latest quarterly financial report.
The Port Authority projects that the two new hangar complexes planned for Stewart Airport will create 260 construction jobs and another 245 permanent operations jobs, the staff presentation showed. The development teams were selected from five shortlisted companies that submitted bids last year to build and maintain the facilities.
Ramos, the Orange County lawmaker, said she supports the development and has no immediate concerns about increased traffic in Stewart. But she wonders if it would create new union jobs in the area.
“If these were unionized opportunities, that would be an even bigger win for the community,” she said.
Szymczak said Sky Harbor has not yet decided whether the positions it will hire at Stewart will be unionized. The company’s investment, he added, will include a new training program for basic aircraft maintenance.