East Hampton ‘Privatization’ Approved

East Hampton Airport will become a prior permission “private” airfield on May 19 after a two-day closure. The FAA has carried out an airspace analysis and has approved the tony resort community’s plan to take over operation of the airport and limit noise by limiting access. East Hampton Airport will close on May 17 to conduct the transition and reopen on May 19 as East Hampton Town Airport. The FAA said it had a look at the airspace and had no objection to the change as long as the town takes over establishment and maintenance of its own instrument procedures.

The town has hired Flight Tech Engineering to design the approaches and they will not be publicly available. “Only those entities specifically authorized by the airport owner will have access to use those special IFPs,” a statement on the transition said. “The airport operator will provide the IFR procedures to the authorized users.” It’s not clear who will be allowed access to the airport and what criteria will be used to grant permission or when the new procedures will be available. The town announced its intention to move to a PPR format after all its obligations tied to previous FAA grants had expired. The town received numerous complaints every summer about the parade of helicopters and private jets that delivered the rich and famous to their vacation homes.