{"id":61573,"date":"2022-08-01T16:07:28","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T16:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=61573"},"modified":"2022-08-01T16:07:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T16:07:28","slug":"east-hampton-airport-closure","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/east-hampton-airport-closure\/","title":{"rendered":"A Battle Over the Fate of the East Hampton Airport Is Creating Havoc in the South Fork"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Credit: Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Town of East Hampton is caught in an all-out legal fray over roughly 600 acres nestled between some of the priciest property in the country, pitting the rich against the even richer, and multimillionaires against their billionaire neighbors.<\/p>\n

At the crux of the dispute: the East Hampton Airport and the estimated 30,000-plus flights it handles annually. On one side, well-heeled residents living along the flight paths of private jets, helicopters, and turbo prop planes are tired of screaming poolside about rattling windows, rumbling engines and the seemingly unending disruptions the aircrafts cause. The complaints often fall on the deaf ears of their main adversaries, the highest of a high-flying jet-set supported by those locals who welcome the millions of dollars flowing from open wallets into the area economy.<\/p>\n

Barry Raebeck, a head of Say No to KHTO, a group that has advocated for closing East Hampton Airport (known by the navigation code KHTO), summed up the fight last year: \u201cThis is not the haves versus the have nots,\u201d he told The New York Post. \u201cIt\u2019s the have everythings versus the have-a-lots.\u201d<\/p>\n

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LOS ANGELES, CA – FEBRUARY 12: Recording artists Jay Z (L) and Beyonce pose during The 59th GRAMMY Awards at STAPLES Center on February 12, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Lester Cohen\/Getty Images for NARAS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The list of those known to use the East Hampton Airport is a who\u2019s who spanning multiple industries, from entertainers Beyonce and Jay-Z and former Google chair Eric Schmidt to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and New York Mets owner and hedge fund manager Steve Cohen.<\/p>\n

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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 02: (L-R) Betsy Kenny Lack and Eric Schmidt attend the 2019 LACMA Art + Film Gala Presented By Gucci at LACMA on November 02, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Donato Sardella\/Getty Images for LACMA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boldface names or not, detractors say the issues these elites\u2019 aircraft cause take the spotlight off what the Hamptons once was and should still be: a serene oceanside retreat. From July through the end of September 2019, a study showed 47,000 complaints were lodged in connection to aircraft using the East Hampton Airport, with most of them from 533 households. (One report claimed 44 percent of the complaints came from 10 households, and a single home was responsible for 1,811 of them). That total is up from 19,000 complaints made during the same period four years earlier, when noisier helicopter service wasn\u2019t quite as prevalent.<\/p>\n

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BOSTON, MA – MAY 1: Chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group, Robert Kraft, looks on while attending Game One of the 2022 NBA Playoffs Eastern Conference Semifinals between the and the Boston Celtics on May 1, 2022 at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2022 NBAE (Photo by Brian Babineau\/NBAE via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jay Schneiderman, the supervisor of the Town of Southampton, which partially lies in flight paths, acknowledged to The New York Times<\/em> that \u201cboth sides are right in some respects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, the airport has been here a long time, but it has changed, aircraft have changed, flight patterns have changed,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not really the same airport that it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bitter tug of war between the wealthiest visitors and residents who descend on the area from the skies and the coterie of frustrated, fed-up homeowners on the ground has been years in the making, and East Hampton Town appears to have known the situation would continue to deteriorate as time marched on. In a longsighted bid to gain control of the airport, East Hampton Town opted to decline federal grant money two decades ago. As a result, a contract the town had with the Federal Aviation Administration that assured the airport would remain open finally expired in September 2021.<\/p>\n

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398213 13: Director Cameron Crowe and actor Tom Cruise arrive in Crowe’s private jet December 6, 2001 during a visit to the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, TX. Cruise is in the area promoting his new movie “Vanilla Sky” opening on December 14, 2001. (Photo by Ronald Martinez\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Local officials acted fast and attempted to enact a plan to deactivate the public airport at 11:59 p.m. on May 17, reopening 33 hours later as the East Hampton Town Airport, a publicly-owned private prior-permission required facility, complete with the new identifier, JPX. The change was to allow the town to limit flights to a single takeoff and landing per aircraft per day, while also shortening operating hours and regulating aircraft based on size and noise level.<\/p>\n

The day before the closing, however, a New York State Supreme Court Justice issued a temporary restraining order on the Town of East Hampton. Three parallel lawsuits filed on behalf of plaintiffs Blade Air Mobility, East End Hangars, the Coalition to Keep East Hampton Airport Open, and some residents in nearby communities succeeded in scuttling the plan in time for the busy summer months.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the plaintiffs had told the judge that East Hampton Town was illegally going ahead with the closure and reopening before completing a required environmental review of the impact the new restrictions would have on the area.<\/p>\n

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