A peek inside the New Haven Tweed Airport expansion

The expansion of Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport has been something Sean Scanlon, airport executive director, has been wanting for years.

For 10 years, this expansion was legally prohibited, but was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration in September.

The expansion will lengthen the existing Tweed runway to 6,635 feet and will construct a new terminal on the East Haven side of the airport.

Scanlon said that it was challenging to run this airport with such a runway at 5,600 feet long.

“We really didn’t have any air service, we had one or two flights a week to just Philadelphia,” Scanlon said. “Everyone had kind of written us off.”

Even though the expansion of the airport will now allow the Tweed airport to include flights from Myrtle Beach, Savannah, Charleston and Nashville, people are concerned about how the expansion will impact the environment.

“I want to be able to have clean air to breathe, I want clean water to drink, I want to be able to sit on my deck and enjoy the sun,” said Alana May, New Haven resident.

While Scanlon recognizes that climate change is an issue, he said that air travel is only 2% of global carbon emissions and that the expansion of Tweed is a part of a larger plan to grow New Haven.

“Well I think New Haven is the future of Connecticut,” Scanlon said.

Copy written by Jess Simms