Airport a bright spot for Rutland County transportation
The renamed Rutland Southern Vermont Regional Airport is starting to live up to its billing, thanks to its regional passenger air carrier’s links with a major national airline.
Cape Air, which replaced Colgan Air, has a tie-in with JetBlue, according to new airport manager Dave Carman. Not only can people book directly with JetBlue then take a daily Cape Air flight to Boston, it also lets the rest of the country know that Southern Vermont is a destination, he said.
Colgan had ties with Continental Airlines – but so does Cape Air. The change to Cape Air also meant Rutland sidestepped any bad publicity from a February Colgan crash in Buffalo that killed 50 people.
The Cape Air decision has broad air carrier significance. Literally, “it puts us on the map,” Carman said.
A commercial turboprop pilot, a flight instructor and a paramedic as well as an administrator, Carman came from Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania last October to take over from 14-year manager Tom Trudeau. Also this year, the airport got a new assistant manager, Operations Specialist Jim Thompson – an indication, at a time of State personnel cutbacks, that activity there is on an upswing.
Carman said that one of the field’s two big wish list items is now installed and will soon be activated: an approach signal system that will give incoming planes better guidance on exactly where they are during less-than-ideal weather. The approach lights and navigation aids in the previous system weren’t as good at helping pilots land, and after two misses, they would go on to another airport such as the one at Lebanon, New Hampshire, leaving Rutland-bound passengers to get to their destination by bus.
The other big dream is to extend the main runway from 5,000 to 6,000 feet, Carman said. That would let larger charter jets land, so it would be a big plus for the tourism industry, he said.
As a first step toward that goal, the airport will have to create a safety zone past the 5,000-foot runway, Carman said. When construction time comes, regional officials and politicians will make the case for going all the way to 6,000 feet, since the required safety work would get to 6,000 feet, and since it would be cheaper to do everything sooner and at once.
Getting federal approval may not be the only obstacle. To have a 6,000-foot runway, the support fill would have to cover Route 103, so the highway would need a tunnel to go underneath the enlarged airfield.
A website www.flyrutlandvt.com advertises the field and has links to ticket purchasing sites. The website notes that parking is free, and for those without personal transportation, lists three rental agencies and six taxi or shuttle services (skiers bound for Killington often rely on the latter).
Local pilots continue to keep the Rutland chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association active, Carman said, and Columbia Air Services, their fixed-base operation (it’s a technical term at airfields, abbreviated FBO) can handle turboprop needs as well as piston-driven aircraft. He’s happy to have migrated north, he said, to an airport where things are looking up.
