Friends of East Hampton Airport Files Lawsuit Against Town of East Hampton

The Friends of East Hampton Airport (FOEHA) coalition filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Town of East Hampton to prevent the aviation bans passed last week by the Town Board.

“Friends of East Hampton Airport remains steadfastly committed to preserving East Hampton Airport’s vitality and accessibility to the public,” Loren Riegelhaupt, spokesman for the group said. “[Suing] is a course that we concluded we had no alternative but to pursue after months of trying, without success, to convince the Town to follow its obligations under federal aviation law.”

In a statement from East Hampton Town, they claimed the lawsuit was “stripped of its rhetoric” and that “the 34-page complaint is entirely predictable and contains no surprises”.

Last Thursday during the Town Board meeting, the board voted to approve three restrictions for aircrafts flying to East Hampton Airport.

The restrictions, which were proposed by Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez back in February, included a mandatory nighttime curfew from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.; an extended curfew on noisy aircraft from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m.; and a limit on operations by noisy aircraft of one trip (one arrival and one departure) per week during the summer season.

According to the Town,the restrictions will not affect almost 80 percent of the operations at the Airport.

The coalitions is accusing the Town of violating federal law claiming that local governments have “no authority to use their police powers to regulate aircraft in flight or to impose airport noise or access restrictions,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also claims that the Town’s adoption of the bans are in violations of the Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 (“ANCA”), which is a national aviation noise police established by Congress.

Under the ANCA, airport proprietors are not allowed to inact any noise or access restrictions on any aircraft classified by the FAA as “Stage 2” and “Stage 3” aircraft, (which produce less noise than ”Stage 1” aircrafts) unless they first complied with ANCA’s requirements, which the Town did not do, according to the lawsuit.

However, according to East Hampton Town, the Airport Noise and Capacity Act no longer applies to East Hampton Airport, according to a press release from the Town.

The lawsuit is also accuses the Town of violating the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of 1982 (the “AAIA”), which in return for federal airport funding, the Town assured the government that at least until September 2021, it would keept the airport “open and accessible to all types of aircraft and aeronautical activities, including commercial activities” on reasonable terms.

Under the AAIA, the Town also stated it would “maintain the Airport in a safe and well-serviced condition; and not impose anti-competitive restrictions,” according to the lawsuit.

“The Restrictions violate these grant assurances because they are unreasonable and anti- competitive in nature, unfairly discriminate against certain aircraft, and will so deprive the Airport of revenue as to make it difficult or impossible for the Airport to be properly maintained,“ the lawsuit reads.

In response, the Town claims that in their lawsuit, the group has ignored the “years of studies, analyses, public meetings, consultations with airport users, and deliberative process and Town Board deliberations” that led to the restrictions that that Town has waited for “federal contractual obligations to expire before taking this action”, according to the press release.

The Town also claims that the coalition has also ignored the steps that led to the decision including: ”federally mandated flight paths for helicopters, voluntary flight paths for all aircraft, voluntary curfews, voluntary altitude requirements and other measures”, which all proved ineffective, according to the press release.

The Town claims that they set the restrictions to limit only the “most disturbing operations” at the airport and made sure they are “only as restrictive as necessary.”

In the press release, they stated that they are prepared for the litigation and will defend the right to impose the restrictions as well as defend against the raised issues.

“While we anticipated this lawsuit, it is sad that these airport users are now going to force the Town to spend scarce airport funds to defend these restrictions rather than working to make this airport the best it can be,” a statement released by the Town read.

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