Breaking the mould

Avports' investment in Connecticut's Tweed New Haven Airport shows that public-private partnerships can work for smaller US gateways, writes the company's CEO, Jorge Roberts, and chief operating officer, Arturo Garcia-Alonso.

Over the past 95 years, our team at Avports (formerly Pan Am World Services) has contributed to growth and continuity at over 30 small airport communities, including 47 continuous years managing Westchester County Airport (HPN) and 51 years at Teterboro Airport (TEB) to name a few.

In the US, there are more than 5,000 small airports and aerodromes, some of these struggle to survive. In most cases, these facilities are located in regions with high air travel demand, which have been historically underserved.

Just getting the project started requires vision, key partnerships, patience, and perseverance, and then, committed and focused work.

Regional airports are challenging and complex in their own way, but they also provide unique opportunities for growth. Our experience with Tweed New Haven Airport (HVN) – for decades one of the most underserved airports in the US – provides a case study of how a public-partnership can be structured to achieve the aforementioned objectives and results.

The vision

During the nineties, HVN showed great success in leveraging air travel demand and opportunities by attracting regional air carriers and commuters for the main legacy carriers, connecting key large hubs with New Haven, such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington and Newark.

However, in the wake of 9/11 and with several waves of airline consolidation, the passenger traffic consistently decreased as legacy airlines rationalised their operations. The decline eventually led to HVN becoming arguably the most underserved airport in the country considering its location in one of the most densely population regions of the US – Tweed New Haven is located about 60 miles south of Hartford’s Bradley International (BDL) and 80 miles northeast of New York’s LaGuardia (LGA) and John F Kennedy (JFK) airports.

In spite of this environment, Tweed New Haven Airport Authority and Avports believed in the tremendous opportunities of the airport.

Indeed, data showed the Southern Connecticut region is among the top three most underserved markets in the United States, and HVN is the perfect airport to serve this market. The challenge was HVN’s constrained infrastructure and facilities, including a short runway, prevented the airport from serving this demand.

We were not the only ones with a bullish vision for HVN. In 2020, during the most damaging times of the pandemic, when most companies were still trying to adjust to the 'new normal', we came to an agreement with Andrew Levy (former co-founder of Allegiant) and his newly formed team at Avelo, which were developing a new US-based ultra-low cost airline with the vision of establishing their base at New Haven.

The result is a fascinating story of air traffic growth at regional airports – going from zero traffic to more than 14 destinations in its first year of operation at HVN.

Key partnerships

The cornerstone of this project (or any project) is aligning all key stakeholders into a shared vision for the airport, including the Mayors of New Haven and East Haven, the Governor and other elected officials, union leaders and the business and residential communities.

Under the new 43-year public-partnership agreement (PPP or P3) between the airport authority and Avports, we assumed the risk and responsibility for all HVN's operating expenses and any ongoing deficits, eliminating all local subsidies and saving taxpayers money.