The airline notified Martha’s Vineyard Airport last week that the flights to and from Westchester County, which ran about once a day in the summer, would be discontinued in 2024, said Geoff Freeman, the airport director.
Eighty years ago, while World War II was raging in Europe, the military carved 683 acres out of the state forest on the Vineyard to create the United States Naval Auxiliary Facility.
An initiative to build a $3.5 million dormitory for summer employees at the airport is at least two years away from completion. Members of a committee looking at the feasibility of a complex said there is much work to do, but support is widespread.
About 64,000 people have taken commercial flights at the airport in the first eight months of 2023 — a figure that is already higher than the total annual commercial passengers for three of the past five years.
After dozens of people were forced to sleep over at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport last month, the airport is asking airlines to consider the Island’s limited resources and accommodations when planning future flights.
About 40 people slept overnight on cots at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport this weekend after a pair of late flights were canceled. The makeshift shelter was coordinated by several Island officials.
Shortly before 11 a.m. Sunday a single-engine plane went down in an area about a mile west of Martha’s Vineyard Airport. The pilot, who was the only one on board, was uninjured during the emergency landing.