Question: Why does the Martha’s Vineyard Airport need luxury advertising?

Answer: It doesn’t.

Better question: Why does the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Commission believe it should consider luxury advertising as a way to generate extra revenue?

Answer: It shouldn’t.

Records released by the county treasurer last summer showed that the airport ended last year with a comfortable operating surplus. Nevertheless, with the national economy in a tailspin, the airport commission is right to be looking at other sources of revenue. But the luxury advertising scheme is the wrong way to go.

It appears that the airport commission may have fallen for a fast sales pitch from a slick, upscale advertising company.

Why does this company want to advertise at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport?

To make money of course, money that will leave the Vineyard and accrue to zero benefit here.

Who needs this?

Not the Island.

Selectmen in the three up-Island towns have written to the airport commission to oppose vigorously the luxury advertising scheme. The selectmen are dead right and the commission should abandon the idea.

The Vineyard airport has an interesting history and even appears in Wikipedia, which offers the following description:

“The airfield was constructed during World War II as a coastal patrol base. The new terminal building, constructed in 2001, replaced an older wooden structure that was the original base operations building. Historical photos and memorabilia are mounted on the western wall of the main hall, near the entrance to the restaurant, and tell the story of the Navy squadrons posted there during the war.”

The luxury advertising plan is out of character for the Vineyard and its airport, built upon a swath of reclaimed coastal sandplain and surrounded by state forest.

Meanwhile, wild asters are blooming all around the airport this month. And they are the best luxury advertising of all.