Millinocket airport looks to expand

MILLINOCKET – Look at the Millinocket Municipal Airport today and you see two runways, an office and a few patches of uneven tarmac pavement near several relatively unused hangars.

But look at it through airport field manager Tony Cesare’s eyes and you see the beginnings of 3,000 leisure flight operations annually, a terminal for Federal Express and other shipping companies and a charter plane service quickly and easily bringing thousands of tourists and business people annually into the only fully functional airport between Bangor and Presque Isle.

Cesare told five Town Council members Thursday that it would take some work and money to realize his dream, but all of the building blocks already are at the airport off Medway Road.

“I don’t think it can happen – I know it can happen,” Cesare said Thursday. “This airport is definitely viable.”

Some of the councilors who visited the site as part of a council workshop agreed. They were there to inspect the facility to see whether it’s in the town’s interest to buy one or more hangars the Katahdin Federal Credit Union owns and wants to sell.

“There is a lot of potential here,” Councilor Wallace Paul said. “I’d like to see it be operated by a private company, but if we can get it going …”

“Not all towns have airports,” Councilor David Nelson said. “It’s an underdeveloped resource, and I think the garages are part of that.”

Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the late 1930s, the airport was designed by the federal government as part of a homeland defense scheme to handle all military traffic of that time, Cesare said.

Its main runway is 4,713 feet, lighted and, like its secondary 4,000-foot-long runway, can handle most light twin-jet and turbo-propeller aircraft. About 1,500 landings and takeoffs occur there annually and about 14 planes pay tie-down fees, Cesare said.

If the main runway is expanded to 5,000 feet, insurance companies will allow those types of planes to land. If expanded to 5,500 feet, which airport officials are working on doing, then most light jets and turbo-props can land in bad weather, Cesare said.

The main runway has room to expand to 6,500 feet, which would accommodate all but four-engine commercial jets.

Its nearest major competitors, airports in Bangor and Presque Isle, are at least two hours away via Interstate 95. Lincoln’s airport has one 2,800-foot-long runway that is landlocked and not easily expanded, Cesare said. That airport also lacks a fixed-base operator such as Cesare, who mans the airport offices full time as part of his West Branch Aviation LLC.

Other small airports in Rockland, Waterville, Augusta, Bar Harbor, Sanford and Portland are too far away to pose much competition, Cesare said.

Millinocket’s airport also has an aviation fuel-pump system and an instrument landing system (ILS) that, if partially repaired, could help draw more leisure-pilot landings in bad weather, Cesare said.

A full repair would cost millions, but could occur if enough pressure is placed on the Federal Aviation Administration, which has refused to repair the airfield’s ILS system, despite having repairmen there monthly, until it is paid $12,000 by the town.

Town officials are working on addressing that problem, Cesare said.

The airport could be even more viable if the surrounding towns such as Medway and East Millinocket help support it, Cesare said.