Port Authority Approves Fed. Inspection Service

NEW YORK – The Port Authority Board voted on Thursday to change the name of Stewart International Airport to market it as a New York metropolitan area facility. Agency Aviation Division Director Huntley Lawrence told an oversight committee that the name change would retain the local historical reference.

No name was discussed at the meeting; however, authority officials have said they wanted the new name to be New York International at Stewart Field, remembering the Stewart Family which donated the original farmland that would become the airport.

Lawrence said with the advent of low-cost passenger service, in particular the first transatlantic flights by Norwegian Airways to five European cities, the number of people who have been using Stewart have increased significantly.

Orange County Chamber of Commerce President Lynne Cione, Stewart Airport Commission Chairman Louis Heimbach and Legoland New York spokesman Phil Royle all spoke to the Port Authority Board supporting a name change.

Cione said times have changed since the Stewart family donated the land.

“It’s 88 years later. We have computers; we need to be geo-located. It’s very important for people to know how close we are to New York City,” Cione said.

Heimbach believes some name other than New York International at Stewart Field should be developed.

“Stewart is not a field,” Heimbach said. “It was a field in the 1930s when it was a grass place and it conjures up barnstormers. Stewart Airport is bigger than LaGuardia and Newark combined. It has one of the longest runways in your system so I think that would be a disservice to call it ‘field’ and I don’t think people from Europe or coming any place in the civilized world wants to land in a field these days.”

Royle said the airport does need to be identified with New York.

“We will bring 2.5 million more visitors to the Hudson Valley from spring 2020,” he said. “They need an airport that is internationally recognized that is marketing in the right way that they can land into.”

Thomas Hafer, the Stewart family spokesman, said he has seen no evidence that a name change would grow the airport.

“I feel that a name change, at least by itself, is a shallow response that avoids taking on the harder problem, but this issue keeps coming up, so what we hope is that we can work with the people from Port Authority and come up with a suitable compromise position,” Hafer said.

The Port Board also approved $30 million to construct a Federal Inspection Station of 20,000-square feet on the north side of the passenger terminal to segregate domestic and international passengers as required by the FAA. That is expected to be completed by 2020.

Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus released a statement after the board vote supporting the plan to expand the terminal to make way for permanent international arrivals.

The board also gave its okay to a contract with Signature Flight Support Corporation to lease land and construct a hanger and terminal for its customers.