Troop contract formalizes BIA win
Photo/Courtesy BIA
Bangor International Airport has signed a three-year military charter contract
Bangor International Airport recently signed a three-year contract with Global Aviation Holdings Inc., one of the military charter airline companies that this fall briefly flirted with the idea of sending some of its flights to Portsmouth International Airport.
The airport signed the formal contract after winning a request for bids Global sent to competing airports. The contract means BIA will be the exclusive stop used by Global's two troop carrier airlines, North American Airlines and World Airways, when transporting military personnel to and from overseas assignments. For the past six years, BIA has had informal "operating agreements" with the two airlines, which typically bring roughly 100,000 troops through Bangor's airport every year. The new contract "formalizes" that relationship, BIA Director Rebecca Hupp tells Mainebiz.
The formal commitment will "hopefully" prevent the blitz of negative media attention BIA received in October after Portsmouth International Airport publicly stated that several of the troop carrier airlines that were using BIA would be going through its airport on the former Pease Air Force base instead, Hupp says. In the end, all the troop carriers returned to using BIA. In total, BIA lost roughly 17 flights to Pease, Hupp says. "We didn't welcome the media attention because it wasn't a positive news story," she says. "However, we knew that Pease was being overly optimistic in its claims."
Besides the new contract with Global, Hupp says formal contracts are being negotiated with other troop carrier airlines that work with BIA. When asked if the new emphasis on formal contracts is a direct response to the Portsmouth International Airport fiasco, Hupp would only say, "[The contract] wasn't something we specifically asked for, but it is a positive thing ... We were comfortable with how the relationship was in the past. I think this formalizes the relationship and we're comfortable with this, as well."
The new contract formalizes the service agreement the two parties were acting under. The contracts do not promise more flights or anything like that, Hupp says. In fact, it's impossible to predict the number of troop flights Bangor can expect over the three-year course of the contract. "The flights through Bangor are contingent on the world situation," she says.
Being a refueling stop for troop flights provides roughly 30% of Bangor International Airport's revenue, which reached $13 million in 2008. In the past six years, the airport -- and the now-famous Maine Troop Greeters -- has welcomed nearly 1 million servicemen and women on roughly 4,000 flights. However, Hupp says the troop flights are a supplemental source of income. The core focus of the airport is still commercial traffic. BIA has one of the longest runways on the East Coast and can accommodate the largest commercial airliners in existence.
The airport could, in theory, even handle a space shuttle, though Hupp says the claim that BIA is officially one of NASA's emergency landing spots is likely an urban legend. "I've never received a call from NASA," she says. "We could in theory accommodate the space shuttle, but it doesn't mean the space shuttle will be landing in Bangor."
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