West Lebanon
“He always said it was funny I ended up in Lebanon,” whose local airline has been Cape Air since 2008, said Matulonis, a marketing and communications specialist at Hypertherm, a manufacturer of plasma-cutting products based in Lebanon. She felt a special connection to her dad Saturday morning when she flew in one of these “tiny” planes, a nine-seat Cessna 402C, for the first time. The Lebanon Municipal Airport had offered her and other local business leaders a free 20-minute scenic flight as part of the airport’s efforts to reach its sales benchmark 2017.
The airport must board least 10,000 passengers each year to qualify for a $1 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration, airport manager Rick Dyment said on Thursday. Though the airport has met this goal every year since 2012, it usually does so with the help of discounted ticket prices late in the year. One-way tickets to Boston Logan International Airport are currently $49, instead of the usual $59, and tickets to Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., are $99 instead of $129, discounts that Dyment said will last until the end of the year.
He hopes to use this year’s money toward long-term improvement projects, with a particular focus on making the airport’s runway ends meet the FAA’s safety criteria. The Lebanon Municipal Airport is funded approximately 90 percent by grants, 5 percent by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and 5 percent from the city of Lebanon, Dyment said, adding that in the past 13 years or so, the airport has spent about $13 million on improvement projects, of which Lebanon taxpayers have paid about 1 percent.
The free scenic flights were meant to “get some interest buzzing about Cape Air” that will hopefully help the airport meet the minimum of 622 enplanements it will need in December to qualify for the federal grant, Dyment said. Other local businesses represented on Saturday included Geokon, a Lebanon-based company that manufactures geotechnical instrumentation products, and the Lebanon, Norwich and Quechee Times.
Noah Weisberg, who does tech support for Hypertherm and won a seat on one of Saturday’s flights in a companywide raffle, said he was excited to “see the Upper Valley from above.” He’d never been on a Cape Air flight before, but frequently travels for business via the Dartmouth Coach bus line, which he described as the Upper Valley’s primary connector to the Boston area. He said he might consider taking a Cape Air flight in the future if the scheduling made sense.
Though Matulonis had never flown in an aircraft with fewer than 20 seats before, and has been known to feel claustrophobic in confined spaces such as elevators, she shared Weisberg’s excitement about getting a bird’s-eye view of the area, she said minutes before the 11 a.m. boarding time. She was seated next to Rob Taylor, executive director of the Lebanon Area Chamber of Commerce, who coordinated the guest list for Saturday’s three demo flights. Matulonis is also on the chamber’s board of directors.
“This is going to be fun,” Matulonis said to Taylor.
“I know,” he replied. “I’m excited.”
As the plane circled around the runway, it passed by Sharkey’s Helicopters and Granite Air Center, two companies that are based out of the airport and which lease their properties from the city.
Taylor explained that Granite Air sets up “fractional ownership” of corporate jets, so that several buyers can share access to the same private aircraft.
“That’s really what a lot of the growth is for this airport,” he told her. He said, later on in the demo, that a number of Upper Valley “execs” fly regularly on Cape Air to commute to businesses they own or work with in Boston or New York City.
There was virtually no wind that morning, perfect flying conditions for the low-altitude cruise — which fluctuated from about 1,500 to 2,400 feet, with a speed of about 120 knots, pilots said — over the downtown Lebanon and Hanover areas, a route Matulonis requested due to the familiarity of the terrain.
Throughout the flight, passengers pointed out such natural features as Boston Lot Lake in West Lebanon, the Connecticut River next to Dartmouth and the jutting peak of Mount Ascutney in the distance — as well as manmade landmarks, such as people’s houses and places of work.
“Look! Hypertherm’s right there,” said Matulonis.
“It’s interesting to see the hospital as just this giant, massive complex in the middle of a rural area,” said Taylor. “It’d be fun to be up here and see all the traffic at about 4 o’clock.”
After the flight, Taylor discussed some of the ways in which he’d like to see the airport develop in the future, in addition to fractionally owned aircraft at Granite Air. He hopes to see the airport lease out more space to tenants, and also expand the number of locations to which it flies its planes — especially to Washington, D.C., which he described as a major business and tourist destination. But he acknowledged that, for many Lebanon residents, the airport can be a “very touchy” subject because of its financial dependence on the city.
“Right now, the city spend more than it’s making on (the airport),” he said. “We would love to make a profit.”
EmmaJean Holley can be reached at eholley@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.