Private jets are getting a ‘home base’ in New York as VIP flights soar

New York’s Stewart International Airport is looking to get busier in the coming years, after the Port Authority’s board of commissioners signed off last month on two deals to bring more private jets to the Orange County airfield, which is located about 50 miles north of New York City.

The move comes as private jet use is rising globally due to a surge in demand among businesses and affluent travelers following the COVID-19 pandemic, and represents a gambit by the New York-New Jersey transportation agency to capitalize on that trend. The deals are drawing support from some local lawmakers and business leaders, who say accommodating more private jets at Stewart could deliver economic gains for the area.

“If this is an opportunity for us to utilize our airport in new and innovative ways and create jobs, I certainly don’t see an issue with that,” said Orange County Legislator Genesis Ramos, a lifelong Newburgh resident whose district includes part of the public and military airport. “This can be a catalyst for other projects.”

“We’re just so lucky” for the investment, said New York state Assemblymember Chris Eachus, whose district runs from Stony Point up through the southern half of Stewart.

In May, the Port Authority’s 12-member board voted to authorize the agency to enter into 30-year leases with two development teams — led by Sky Harbour and Aviation Facilities Company — that would build and operate at least $119 million worth of corporate jet hangars, or “home bases” for the planes, on 22 currently vacant acres on the airport’s north side. In exchange, the Port Authority would charge more than $43 million in ground rent over the course of the leases, while the hangar operators would make money by renting out the space to clients who want to store and service their jets.

The agency aims to finalize the leases by this fall and open both facilities by early 2028, according to a staff presentation to the board. The plans call for 15 hangars totaling more than 300,000 square feet, with room for dozens of private jets.

The Port Authority and New York have long tried to boost activity at Stewart, which is one of the region’s smaller airports. But even though it’s been billed as a secondary airport for New York City that’s roughly a 75-minute drive from Midtown, it still receives far fewer travelers than other local airports, including LaGuardia and JFK. In March, JetBlue Airways announced it would not return to Stewart after a pandemic hiatus, ending service that began there in 2006, when the company proclaimed: “Hudson Valley On The Horizon.”

Now, the Port Authority hopes private jets and their VIP fliers will lift the airport’s fortunes. Nationally, the number of hours flown on private turbojet aircraft jumped 33% from 2019 to 2022, according to the latest data from the Federal Aviation Administration. And big global makers of private jets, including Bombardier and Gulfstream, are reporting robust backlogs for new planes.

The New York area’s main business jet airports, Morristown and Teterboro in New Jersey, have limited hangar space amid this boom in private flights. The website for Morristown Airport — Taylor Swift’s most-frequented airport in the region, according to flight tracking data from Flightradar24 — currently invites anyone interested in storing a smaller plane there to join the waitlist. At Teterboro, private aircraft takeoffs and landings were up 1% last year compared to 2019, per Port Authority data.

But Stewart Airport has missed out so far on the corporate flying bonanza, Port Authority data shows. Private aircraft takeoffs and landings there fell 8% from 2022 to 2023 and were down 11% last year since before the pandemic.

That’s where a developer like Sky Harbour comes in. The Westchester County-based company offers a “home-basing solution” for private jet owners, whether wealthy individuals or large corporations, said Neil Szymczak, Sky Harbour’s vice president of real estate. It builds turnkey hangars for lease and then provides tenants basic maintenance and support services, with rates generally ranging from $32 to $74 per square foot of hangar space.

Sky Harbour executives see Stewart as an ideal location for storing private jets, given its ample unused land and proximity to New York City. When an owner needs their plane from one of the company’s planned hangars — which Sky Harbour estimates could house up to 40 corporate jets altogether, depending on their size — it could be flown down to Morristown or Teterboro to pick up the passengers and whisk them off to their destination.

“Most of the Manhattan-owned aircraft that depart from Teterboro and arrive to Teterboro don’t live at Teterboro,” Sky Harbour’s CEO Tal Keinan said in an interview with financial services company the Motley Fool in March. “They reposition because there’s no room there. You can’t get hangar space at Teterboro.”

Keinan added that “it feels like every hedge fund in Midtown Manhattan has called us” about space at Sky Harbour’s other anticipated facilities in the region — at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Connecticut, and Hudson Valley Regional Airport near Poughkeepsie — after the company announced plans for them last December. Those facilities, which also required ground leases with local public authorities, are expected to be completed in 2026, according to Sky Harbour’s latest quarterly financial report.

The Port Authority projects the two new hangar complexes slated for Stewart Airport will create 260 construction jobs and another 245 permanent operations jobs, the staff presentation showed. It said the development teams were selected out of five prequalified firms that submitted bids last year to build and maintain the facilities.

Ramos, the Orange County legislator, said she supports the development and had no immediate concerns about increased traffic at Stewart. But she questioned whether it would create new union jobs in the area.

“If these were unionized opportunities, that would be an even bigger win for the community,” she said.

Szymczak said Sky Harbour had yet to decide whether the positions it hires at Stewart will be unionized. The company’s investment, he added, will include a new training program for basic aircraft maintenance.