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April 6, 2010 Portlandbiz

Obama's visit upends jetport

Photo/Robert M. Cook President Obama addresses the crowd at the Portland Expo on April 1
By Robert M. Cook

President Barack Obama may have slowed down business during his visit to Portland last week, but the impact was most keenly felt at the Portland International Jetport.

Any business that was located along Obama's motorcade route between the jetport and the Portland Expo undoubtedly lost some business during Obama's visit, says Airport Manager Paul Bradbury. But the 40 minutes the president spent arriving and leaving the jetport likely cost the airport thousands of dollars. Bradbury says 40 minutes of no activity at the airport to accommodate the president is an eternity.

"The runway is the lifeblood and all revenues for the airport are derived from aviation," says Bradbury.

Bradbury says the jetport's six airlines could not land or take off for 20 minutes while the president and the Secret Service traveled aboard three Marine One helicopters and three Security helicopters from Pease Air National Guard Base in Portsmouth, N.H., to the jetport and then headed to the Portland Expo in a convoy of black Secret Service SUVs at 3 p.m. The same was true when the president and the Secret Service returned to the airport at around 4 p.m., boarded their helicopters and flew back to Pease, he says.

Bradbury says JetBlue Flight 609 managed to take off at 2:30 p.m. just before President Obama left Pease.

Overall, the president's timing couldn't have been better for the jetport. He says Obama's visit created very few flight delays for departures because most flights were scheduled to depart the jetport after 3 p.m. "It was just lucky that it was during a slow time," he says.

If Obama's trip had coincided with the jetport's morning push of 1,000 business travelers who regularly fly out between 6 and 6:40 a.m., the jetport could have lost as much as $80,000 -- a rate of $2,000 per minute. Bradbury says that is how much the jetport would charge a contractor for liquidated damages if work they did on or near the runway prevented any air traffic to and from the jetport. In this case, Bradbury says the jetport can't send President Obama a bill for whatever revenue the jetport might have lost on Thursday afternoon.

Bradbury says it was also fortunate the president used the general aviation area to land his Marine One helicopter because that location did not affect the main terminal or the main roads leading in and out of the airport. Obama also arrived back at the jetport around 4 p.m., which was a blessing because Interstate 295 was reopened to regular traffic 30 minutes before the city's evening rush hour begins, Bradbury says.

He says that while seeing the President of the United States arrive and depart from the Portland International Jetport was a great honor, he is glad it is not a regular occurrence.

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