TPT May 2017

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

inspections, surveying, weather and pollution monitoring, crop-dusting, banner-towing and more – to cease or curtail operations. She reported, “Aviation businesses in New York and Florida say they are facing significant, if not ruinous, losses.” According to the Eastern Region Helicopter Council, which represents charter, medevac, news-gathering and sightseeing operators, 100,000 helicopter flights go in and out of New York City’s four heliports each year, while around 200,000 helicopters and small airplanes transit the scenic Hudson River corridor. Jeff Smith, vice-president of operations for the council, told the Times , “It’s like an Interstate [highway]”. With a few exceptions, as for law enforcement and medical emergencies, aircraft are now prohibited within a one- nautical-mile radius of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York. That ring is expected to expand to a ten-nautical- mile radius – covering almost all of Manhattan – when the president is in town. Flights to and from airports within 20 to 30 nautical miles may continue, but only under burdensome conditions for the pilots. If President Trump should visit New York frequently or on short notice, “the economic impact of these restrictions would be tremendous,” said Rune Duke, the director of government affairs at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). A $1 BN LOCAL ECONOMY IMPERILLED Because Mr Trump has been avoiding New York since his inauguration, the immediate pain is being felt by the formerly robust general aviation community around Mar-a-Lago – a flight training hub during a worldwide pilot shortage. According to the AOPA, the six South Florida airports affected by the presidential airspace restrictions “account for a local economic output exceeding $1bn, create over 8,000 jobs and have a total payroll of $290mn.” Now, not so much, observed Ms Murphy. Palm Beach County Park Airport, known locally as Lantana Airport, is some six miles from Mar-a-Lago, and no departures are allowed during Mr Trump’s visits. Jonathan Miller, the airport’s fixed base operator, said, “We’re basically on lockdown when he’s here.” Fixed base operators sell fuel, rent hangar space, manage aircraft parking, and handle arrangements for visiting crew and passengers. “You can’t even run an engine for maintenance” when Mr Trump is in the area, which harms mechanic and paint shop tenants, Mr Miller told the Times. “We understand the president needs to be protected,” he said. “But this is going to put us out of business.” Palm Beach Flight Training, a school for pilots at Lantana, has had to suspend training and cancel tens of thousands of dollars in flights. The owner, Marian Smith, said she feared

Economics President Trump’s weekends away from the White House severely impact the industries and commerce of metropolitan New York and South Florida General David Petraeus, a former head of the CIA, predicted in January that Donald J Trump would be the “disrupter- in-chief president,” and Mr Trump has amply earned the designation. As noted by Foreign Policy , also in January, he is not the first president of the US to upend the norms of the nation’s foreign policy. But he is certainly the first whose apparent aversion to spending any more time than necessary in the White House can suppress the economies of two important regions of the country. Kate Murphy is a commercial pilot and Texas journalist who writes frequently for the New York Times . Not long after the 20 January inaugural, she turned her attention to the Trump effect on the environs of Mr Trump’s home city of New York; and of Palm Beach, Florida, site of the Mar-a-Lago resort which Mr Trump and his aides have taken to calling his Winter White House. She began by defining the large bubble of restricted airspace that follows the president wherever he goes: essentially a no-fly zone reaching up to 17,999 feet within a 30-nautical-mile radius of the president’s aircraft. A nautical mile is just over a regular mile. “If you fly into that ring without permission from federal authorities,” Ms Murphy wrote, “fighter jets will be on your wing before you can hum a few bars of Hail to the Chief.” (“The Secret Service of the Skies,” 18 February) This policy – in place since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 – is causing more disruption than usual because some of the busiest airspace in the nation for general aviation is in New York and South Florida. Mr Trump’s current home is, of course, the White House in Washington, DC. But, when Ms Murphy’s piece ran in the Times , he was scheduled to spend his third weekend in a row at Mar-a-Lago. At this writing, his score is four weekends out of five. ‘S IGNIFICANT , IF NOT RUINOUS , LOSSES ’ Major commercial airliners and cargo carriers, such as Delta and FedEx, are unaffected by the temporary flight restrictions, or “TFRs” in aviation-speak, because their personnel and equipment undergo careful security screening whenever they fly. But Ms Murphy explained that the TFRs compel general aviation – private and corporate flights, flight instruction, sightseeing tours, aerial photography, pipeline and utility

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MAY 2017