Airport faces challenge on hangar fees 

Morristown flight school asks council to intervene

Friday, October 11, 2002
BY BILL SWAYZE 
Star-Ledger Staff 

After running Morristown Municipal Airport for more than 20 years without any review, the airport operator is facing questions from town officials over management of the facility and how much money it is making. 

The interest in the airport by town council members comes as an attorney for a flight school based at the airport filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration and state Department of Transportation alleging the airport operator is engaging in a type of aeronautical discrimination. 

According to the complaint, DM Airport Developers Inc., the private operator since 1981, is charging unfair rental rates, violating requirements linked to the use of federal grant money and ignoring safety concerns. The operator's goal appears to be the ouster of general aviation light aircraft, making more space for corporations with jets and the ability to pay more money for use of the airport, attorney Remo Caputo charged. 

The operators deny that, contending the complaints are "misstatements and exaggerations." 

DM Airport Developers contend the new attention by town officials is "highly unusual" and unnecessary. As a private company, the operator said its financial records are off limits. 

Owned by Morristown since the 1940s, the 638-acre airport off Columbia Turnpike in East Hanover, is leased to DM Airport for about $100,000 a year. 

"It's not like we came in here and screwed up the place and are now sucking it dry," said Bob Bogan, deputy airport director. "When we took over in 1981, the airport was operating in the red some $300,000 to $500,000 and we took over more than $1 million in debt from the town." The finances have turned around but "now all of a sudden there are questions about where the money is going?" 

With 225,000 take-offs and landings annually, the airport is the second-busiest in the state, behind Newark Liberty International Airport. Private corporations, such as AT&T and Honeywell International and 10 others maintain hangars and offices at the airfield. 

While residents have complained for years about noisy planes barreling over their neighborhoods, this year town council members started to complain that they know very little about what goes on at the airport -- though from time to time they act as a conduit for federal grants. 

The council formed a committee to ask DM Airport Developers questions. But now some council members want to take it a step further and establish a commission that has oversight over the expenditures and revenues of airport, said councilmen Richard Tighe and Tim Dougherty. 

"The town owns the airport. Don't you think we should know what is going on?" said Dougherty. 

"We've been remiss. No doubt about it," Tighe said. 

But Council President Don Cresitello is opposed to a new commission and calls Tighe and Dougherty "misguided. If you want to run something smoothly, keep the government out of it. We do not need to create more bureaucracy." 

Cresitello noted that he was the mayor who negotiated the 99-year lease with DM Airport. He contends the lease agreement was and is more than fair to the town. "We may be collecting too much rent from them." 

Financial questions about the airport, however, are not only being raised by his peers. Caputo, who represents Century Air Inc., a 28-year-old flight training school and charter business, has raised similar questions with the FAA and state transportation department. 

Caputo contends Century was operating in one hangar paying about $18 per gross square foot, which included utility fees. This year Century and two other flight training schools based at the airport were supposed to move into a new facility. But, the new cost was $38 per gross square foot. 

The other schools moved to the new facility, but Century opposed the new charge and moved to another hanger that is slated for demolition by November, Caputo said. After the hanger is torn down they won't have a home. 

The rental fee is unfair, according to the complaint, that also alleges the operators have ignored taxiway lighting problems. 

Bogan, however, contends Century and its attorney, are trying to make DM Airport Developers appear to be unfair in a public campaign for lower rental rates. The airport has not violated any agreements that come with federal grants and has reinvested in the airport operation and facilities and obtained state grants to repair the taxiway lighting. 

"If the rates are unreasonably high, why did those two other flight schools move to the new center?" Bogan said, noting the offer of a reduced rental fee to Century would be unfair to the two schools paying the higher rate. 

"We have taken a lot of abuse in our efforts to keep the small aircraft owner here," Bogan said. "We have not run anybody off the airport. That just is not true." 



Bill Swayze covers Morristown. He can be reached at wswayze@starledger.com or (973) 539-7910.