A charter and aircraft services provider withdrew its application to lease hangar space at Wilmington Airport in Delaware last week following weeks of public attention and political pressure. Daedalus Aviation, which provides charter and commercial flight services and has supplied aircraft to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), informed the Delaware River and Bay Authority it was “no longer pursuing a hangar lease” ahead of a scheduled board review.
The proposal surfaced on a December meeting agenda and prompted responses from advocacy groups and state lawmakers. These included a letter signed by all 15 members of the Delaware Senate Democratic Caucus urging the authority not to proceed. Questions raised by the groups were generally related to concerns over broader social and political issues related to ICE.
Grant assurances and airport authority
The Delaware River and Bay Authority has emphasized that its decisions regarding aeronautical tenants are shaped by federal obligations tied to airport funding. The agency said Wilmington Airport has received approximately $100 million in Federal Aviation Administration grants since the mid-1990s and must comply with associated requirements.
“As a federally obligated airport sponsor … the DRBA will continue to comply with applicable federal and state laws as it pursues additional aeronautical users and diversified revenue sources to support growth at the airport,” the authority said in a statement.
In earlier reporting by Spotlight Delaware, DRBA spokesperson James Salmon said denying a prospective tenant could jeopardize funding. Salmon said doing so would be in violation of grant conditions that could “put not only the potential for future funding in peril, but also could result in a claw-back effort of resources already provided.”
Can an airport turn away a tenant?
Grant assurances are an important part of federal funding many airports receive. Among other things, these assurances require airports to provide access to aeronautical users on terms that are reasonable and nondiscriminatory. While that does not mean an airport cannot reject a potential tenate’s application, it does mean that it can only do so on grounds related to things like airport safety, efficiency and operational needs.
Aviation legal commentary has noted that, although airport sponsors generally have more power than tenants in how deals are made, they cannot simply deny access if doing so conflicts with federal obligations, even if local officials argue otherwise over policy priorities or public concerns.
Daedalus did not provide a reason for withdrawing, according to the authority, but the episode shines a light on the limits built into FAA grant assurances. While elected officials and advocacy groups urged the airport to reject the application, federal funding obligations mean such decisions typically must be grounded in aviation-related factors such as safety, operations, space or compliance with minimum standards. In practice, that framework can leave little room to deny a tenant based solely on external policy concerns, even if public pressure is significant.
The picture is Wilmington International in North Carolina, not Wilmington Delaware.
Best leave AI to the kids?
In my personal opinion, public outrage regarding how ICE is currently operated is justified. The issue of deciding which tenants are allowed access to an airport should have nothing to do with that opinion, however.
FAA requirements for grant awards are in general reasonable and ensure an airport’s fair use for aviation activity is continued. As users of those facilities, we should all be worried when political affiliation enters into those decisions.
For example, pilot groups very quickly refer to those grant assurances when neighbors move in next to an airport and start complaining about airplane noise. Let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot here.
So–it appears that we have an airport that is government-funded (and usually have anti-discrimination laws built into that funding)–denying ANOTHER government agency (ICE–part of Customs)–WHOSE JOB IS TO KEEP ILLEGALS (as defined by an act of the U.S. Congress) out of the country. ICE (a public function)is just doing the job that it was created to do.
The law is the law–either enforce it, or repeal it–you can’t have it both ways–just because you don’t like the law!