A mile of road offers a mile of driving; a mile of airport runway can lead to anywhere. The sentiment of Cape Air Senior Vice President of Planning Andrew Bonney set the optimistic tone at the official groundbreaking ceremony celebrating the City of Eastport Municipal Airport's receipt of a $5.2 million Federal Aviation Administration grant. The event, held on the morning of October 13, was by invitation only in order to adhere to pandemic safety standards and limit the number of people present.
     The grant, with the added benefit of requiring no match from the city, will be used to build a new runway and make improvements to the lighting and wastewater infrastructure. The event was organized by Ron DeFilippo, volunteer airport business development manager, Steve Trieber, volunteer airport manager, and Thomas Hoskins, Eastport city manager, and assisted by airport association volunteers.
     U.S. Senator Susan Collins, State Senator Marianne Moore and State Representative Will Tuell were on hand to speak, and Congressman Jared Golden sent a letter that DeFilippo read in the line up of remarks. The airport, Golden wrote, "is a resource that makes this beautiful community more accessible to the visitors who come back year after year, or sometimes decide to stay for good." Collins, who serves as chairman of the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, explained that the grant, awarded to Eastport in 2019, was supplemental funding "prioritized for small airports such as yours." The project would place the airport in a position of strength for public safety and travel related to tourism and economic development, all of which is "especially important" when the state and region begin to recover from the pandemic, she said.
     "Today's project is just a start of good things, not just for Eastport but for all of Washington County," said Moore. The Port of Eastport is already international in its reach, she noted. With the expanded capacity of the airport, Washington County "could be the gateway to land, sea and air." Tuell commented, "I marvel at all that's been going on in Eastport." He added that the airport project is where "it all happens" -- the infrastructure that supports economic development that benefits Eastport and all of the county.
     Other speakers included representatives from the Maine Department of Transportation, the engineering firm Hoyle, Tanner and the construction company, Sargent Corporation.

Plans include commuter flights
     The airport association has been working on a long term master plan that would expand the economic reach of the airport, including a satellite flight school, solar energy capacity, commercial hangars and a weather station. "This is just the beginning," said Trieber.
     The runway will not be lengthened, but it will be a brand new runway, not a resurfaced one. It will remain at its current dimensions of 4,002 feet long by 75 feet wide. "It's an important point," says DeFilippo. "We don't want big passenger jets flying into Eastport. We don't want to turn it into a jet port. We want to keep the same small, quaint historic seashore community that we have now. I believe part of the attraction of Eastport to many tourists is it's small, relaxing and safe size. We never want to change that." He adds, "That is why Cape Air is the perfect scheduled airline carrier for us. They are the largest commuter airline in the United States with 87 aircraft in scheduled operation. Their planes are twin-propeller, nine-passenger commuter aircraft, and they specialize in small communities, perfect for us."
     DeFilippo says of the event, "One of our objectives was to bring together elected officials, the airline Cape Air, community leaders and the Maine Department of Transportation, so we could gather support for our economic development projects that will commence when the runway construction is finished next year. Not only did we achieve that goal, but I feel we exceeded all expectations."
     Of Cape Air's plans for commuter flights, DeFilippo says, "We expect to have direct flights from Eastport to Boston starting as soon as the construction on the new runway and adjoining electronics are completed, which is estimated for late 2021. We absolutely have concrete talk about flights. Cape Air has given us freedom to choose which days and which hours we want to fly in season, and for the winter we can throttle back to as little as one flight a week and maybe no flights a week - our choice. Our next step is to apply for a federal small airport development grant to subsidize the cost of airline tickets and make flying to Boston super affordable for everyone. Today's event helped us garner support for that grant."
     He adds, "Five years ago when I moved to Eastport and looked at the airport I didn't see what it was. Instead, I saw my vision of what I believed it could be. Today we took a giant step toward making that vision a reality."