Editor’s note: This article is by Tommy Gardner of the Stowe Reporter, in which it was first published Sept. 17, 2015.
[I]n the year since the Morrisville-Stowe Airport reopened with much fanfare, air traffic has been steady — but it’s been a matter of getting your own plane there, or hiring someone to fly you in and out.
Until now.
The company is partnering with Tradewind Aviation, a Connecticut airline whose stops include Boston, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and a handful of Caribbean islands.
Stowe Aviation CEO Russell Barr said small, state-owned airports are quickly becoming a critical part of the nation’s transportation grid.
Barr’s wife, Toni, has another phrase for it: “We call it the power of the plane.”
At first, there will be four weekend flights — two flights into and out of Stowe on Friday and two on Sunday.
According to Tradewind, direct flights start at $350 plus tax for a one-way ticket, although the airline sells premium “commuter ticket books” that knock $100 off a one-way flight. So, a round trip between Morrisville and White Plains will cost between $500 and $70, plus tax.
Online ticket sites show a comparable round trip between Burlington and White Plains for about $550.
What does that extra money get you? For starters, you don’t have to leave the house two-plus hours before the flight to drive to Burlington, pay or arrange for parking, take your shoes and belt off in the TSA line, sit around the gate, and roll the dice on who you’re going to sit next to on the flight.
Instead, you get to the airport 15 minutes before your flight, park your car in the free parking area and let Stowe Aviation and Tradewind take care of the rest.
Since the planes being used are smaller — in weight and seating capacity — than many commercial jetliners, the Transportation Security Administration exempts them from having to screen passengers.
The planes are eight-seater turboprop Pilatus PC-12s, “the most popular business aircraft in the industry today,” said Tom Anderson, Stowe Aviation’s president and chief operating officer. As a bonus, he added, Stowe Aviation’s chief mechanic already has four years of experience on the Pilatus.
Toni Barr said sales representatives at Stowe Mountain Resort have told her some of their regulars would like to be able to fly to New York for a Broadway show, and suggested the resort could add a night in the Big Apple into their vacation packages.
“Nantucket, St. Barths, Stowe. Isn’t that kind of amazing?” Russell Barr said this week. “And this is just the beginning.”
Tradewind doesn’t need to fill all eight seats on every flight to and from Stowe to keep its affiliation with the local airport, according to Anderson. Toni Barr thinks the eight-seat flights will fill up regularly, anyway.
“They (Tradewind) understand it’s a year or two before any route shows its true potential,” Anderson said.
Vermont has 10 state-owned airports; the only one with scheduled flights is Rutland, and that Rutland-Boston flight receives a federal subsidy. In contrast, the Morristown-Stowe route is based on market demand.
“This is the public-private partnership we were talking about from the beginning,” Anderson said. “After we add this, it changes the paradigm.”
Not just for Stowe
Although the company is going to push hard in the New York City metro area, marketing to city residents who might want to fly up for a weekend in Stowe, the real value for residents in the Lamoille County area is exactly the opposite: They get easy access from Morrisville to the New York City and beyond.
Barr also pointed out there’s plenty for tourists to do in places other than Stowe, all a short distance from the airport.
“This automatically adds value for the people who turn right out of the airport instead of left,” Barr said. That’s the direction toward Morrisville.
Toni Barr added that there’s a misconception that Stowe Aviation owns the airport, when in fact it’s just the operator. “We are the stewards, not the owners,” she said.
It’s been roughly one year since the airport reopened after a $4.4 million upgrade, part of a planned $27 million renovation.
Last summer, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin landed in a sleek Cirrus and posed for pictures, ribbons were cut, speeches were delivered, and promises were made about the future vitality of the airport.
Barr and Anderson say they’ve almost met that promise, and years earlier than anticipated.
Busy airport
“Our state airports are engines of regional economic development,” Shumlin said this week. “The investments we make in safety and facility improvements are attracting new business that will bring even more economic activity.”
Air traffic into the Morrisville-Stowe Airport has increased steadily in the past year, thanks to the runway improvements and the fixed operation base. Stowe Aviation isn’t exactly sharing its business reports, but Anderson said business is good. And it’s not coming solely from the recreation sector, which the company assumed would be the case. Instead, as much as 45 percent of traffic into the airport is business-related.
One group flew up just to try out local breweries, driving up to Greensboro to visit Hill Farmstead, and dropping in on Morrisville’s Rock Art and Lost Nation. A local interior designer had clients flying up multiple times instead of driving. Anderson says he is going through fuel just as quickly as he can fill up the tanks.
Stowe Soaring, the glider-ride outfit that was at the airport long before Barr and company set up Stowe Aviation, is still going strong, and the growing pains between the old generation of flyers and the new, buttoned-up and professional outfit seem to be subsiding.
Thanks to the upgrades, plus the money Stowe Aviation is sinking into the place, planes are coming into and out of Stowe all winter. In addition to a snowplow, the airport has a loader with a huge brush attached to the front, a 2,700-ton-per-hour snow blower, heated airport-quality sand, and “some of the best snow-fighters around,” Anderson says.
That’s good, since Tradewind’s flights start just before Christmas.
