Last week, state senators allotted funds to study a thorny question: Who should run Burlington International Airport?
Since 1920, the state’s largest airport has been owned and operated by the state’s largest city. While the 942-acre facility is located in South Burlington, it’s governed by Burlington’s city council and mayor.
But in cities and towns surrounding Burlington, some want to rethink that system.
“The airspace over Chittenden County is not owned by the city of Burlington,” said Sen. Thomas Chittenden, D-Chittenden, who also serves on the South Burlington City Council. With Burlington governing the airport, “it has been very difficult to advocate for the right prioritization of different noise mitigation strategies.”
But Burlington leaders see no need to change the status quo, touting the airport’s financial success in recent years.
“It’s a great airport, it’s great for our economy. We don’t want to screw that up,” said Mayor Miro Weinberger, a Democrat.
The remarks by Chittenden and Weinberger came during an April 6 meeting of the Senate Transportation Committee, which eventually approved the $150,000 study as part of the annual transportation budget.
While the Senate passed their version of the transportation budget on Friday, the House already passed a different version which does not include the airport study, and would need to approve the Senate’s iteration before it goes to Gov. Phil Scott’s desk.
Even if Scott signs a finalized bill that includes the study, its fate is still tied to the general state budget — “The Big Bill” — which encompasses all legislative appropriations, including transportation funds.
Across the country, municipally owned airports such as Burlington International are common, as are ones operated by a state or regional transit authority.
In New England, the cities of Portland, Maine, and Manchester, New Hampshire, own their airports. Both of those airports are located at least partially within the city limits, though they spill into neighboring municipalities.
The airports in Boston; Providence, Rhode Island; and Hartford, Connecticut are owned by their respective state governments. Albany International Airport in New York is owned and operated by a regional authority.
While Burlington International has always been in the city’s hands, this is not the first time city leadership has faced pressure to regionalize the facility’s governance.
In 2019, a report commissioned by Weinberger backed a city-governed model. But regional governance advocates such as Chittenden say the city-financed report was not objective — a notion that the mayor contests.
A 2013 study performed as the airport was teetering on the edge of financial collapse advised that the city should “further explore the advantages/disadvantages of conversion to a regional airport authority governance model which may include the State of Vermont.”
Weinberger says he did offer local municipalities the chance to get in on the airport’s governance after that study came out. But given the institution’s financial woes at the time, there were no takers.
Now that the city has brought the airport from a “junk bond” rating to a relatively healthy financial state, neighboring communities have less trepidation about asking for a slice of the pie, Weinberger said.
“This is an area where, for 100 years, the city of Burlington has basically gotten it right,” Weinberger told the House Committee on Transportation at a Thursday hearing. “We’ve had our rough patches, but it’s a pretty remarkable success.”
Having the airport under the authority of one elected official provides more public accountability than a regional commission would, Weinberger argued.
In addition, the current governance model is endorsed by Beta Technologies, a burgeoning electric aircraft maker headquartered at the airport, because it gives them a single point-person to deal with on airport-related issues, the mayor said.
Yet proponents of the study question why, if the city-run model is superior, Weinberger is reluctant to examine the issue.
While a study might not recommend a change in governance structure, perhaps it would make the logic of the current system “clearer and more transparent to the neighboring communities,” said South Burlington City Councilor Helen Riehle, who also sits on the seven-member Airport Commission (the commission is comprised of five Burlington residents, a South Burlington resident and a Winooski resident).
In the Senate’s version of the bill, all but $15,000 of the $150,000 study’s cost would be paid for by the federal government, with the state pitching in the rest. To execute the study, a committee of nine voting and two non-voting members would work with an independent firm to recommend what governance structure the airport should take on.
The committee would consist of a representative appointed by each of the following: the governor; the mayor of Burlington; the city councils of Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski; the state secretary of transportation and the head of the Lake Champlain Chamber.
The committee would also include two members from the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission: one to represent the interests of “disadvantaged communities” and the other to represent those in the general aviation community, such as charter flight companies and pilot schools.
If the House and Senate agree on a version of the bill that includes the study, Weinberger said the city would cooperate with the committee’s work. But he’s doubtful that the effort would pay off in the airport’s favor.
“The city of Burlington’s done a good job with it,” Weinberger said at the April 6 meeting. “I don’t think someone’s going to come in and find a totally different way of doing things.”
