View full sizeStewart International Airport is about 60 miles north of New York City
A $143 million upgrade of Stewart International Airport was approved today, a project aimed at increasing passenger traffic at the facility about 60 miles north of New York City.
The airport handles only a tiny fraction of the region’s passenger traffic. But the upgrade continues a plan by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to make Stewart more attractive to fliers and carriers.
Stewart’s runways will be repaved and equipped with new lighting. The Port Authority says the work will generate 380 construction jobs and $232 million in economic growth now though completion in December 2014.
The project will also include a new high-speed taxiway, intended to reduce delays.
The overhaul was among several airport projects announced today by the Port Authority, including a $200 million investment by JetBlue Airways to create and new international arrivals area in Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy International.
Today’s investment in Stewart follows a package of fee waivers and other incentives created by the Port Authority to attract additional carriers to the airport. The P.A., which has controlled Stewart since 2007, has spent $20 million in terminal upgrades.
Stewart, in Newburgh and New Windsor, N.Y., had a 4.8-percent increase in passenger volume last year, outpacing growth at JFK, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia.
Stewart may be a convenient alternative for some northern New Jersey fliers, being accessible from Sussex County via I-84 and from Bergen County along I-87.
But Stewart’s 413,000 passenger-trips last year were less than one half-percent of the 106 million trips handled by Port Authority airports in 2011. And an advocate for expanding the region’s airport capacity to meet growing demand said Stewart could not be counted as part of the equation.
"There’s an opportunity for growth there," Jeffrey Zupan, a senior transportation fellow at the Regional Plan Association, said of Stewart. "But it’s always going to be a small fraction of the total regional demand."