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Massport's environmental defense of the North Airfield hangar project

Feb 28 2024

Massport has made a number of claims regarding the North Airfield hangar expansion project, dismissing the climate concern .  The veracity of these claims is examined:

Don't be concerned, flights from Hanscom are declining

Not quite. The flights of jet aircraft are increasing significantly. According to Massport's own reports, flights of private luxury jet aircraft have increased 19% since 2019.¹

However, the flights of small propeller flights, such as training flights, have decreased by over 10,000.  These types of aircraft, which make up the majority of operations, emit relatively small amounts of CO2e.  Propeller operations have been reduced as Massport policies have driven small planes to other airports.² When considering total operations, the reduction in these little aircraft mask the increases in the private luxury jets.³

Therefore, while jet flights have increased dramatically, the total aircraft operations, when the little propeller aircraft are included, have decreased.  Jet aircraft are responsible for almost all of the CO2e of Hanscom flights. 

Additional hangars might reduce flights

The actual data contradicts this theory. This counter-intuitive argument is based on the theory that some unnecessary flights occur because there are limited hangars available at Hanscom.  Such hypothetical flights, called "ferry flights" take an aircraft to another airport with Hangar capacity, and then return when called. 

This same argument has been used to support every prior hangar project at Hanscom Field. However, the historic data shows it is wrong. In the years following the last hangar project, which only was a 20% increase in Hangar capacity, jet operations grew substantially and reached their previous record high of 30,380.⁴

Massport has tried to support this argument by claiming total operations went down after a previous jet hangar project. This argument is disingenuous because, as explained in the previous section, it was the reduction in little propeller aircraft that made the totals go down; the private luxury jets actually experienced a record-high increase.

To date Massport has provided no examples, facts, or data to support any claim about ferry flights or how they are affected by hangar projects. How can they be believed when they control this data and choose not to tell the public what it says?

Massport has said that the proposed hangars will house "based aircraft" calling Hanscom their home base. Such aircraft typically fly 350 hrs per year, each generating 3,000 Tons of CO2e per year. With the capacity of the project estimated at 79 luxury jets, this project enables approximately 180,000 Tons of CO2e per year.⁵ Even if there are a handful of ferry flights today, any reduction associated with them would be dwarfed by these additional aircraft.

Ferry flights might actually go up as a result of the project. Ferry flights are a method to serve airports without hangar capacity. Logan airport, for example, has no based aircraft hangars for private luxury jets and relies on ferry flights. If additional private jets capacity is added at Hanscom, those jets would provide additional ferry flights from Hanscom to airports without capacity such as Logan, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard.

The only way to limit the growth of private luxury jets is to stop building infrastructure capacity to support them. The historic data shows exact what intuition would expect: expanding private luxury jet infrastructure results in expanded jet flights.

This is a Net-Zero project

These environmental claims are based on only on the emissions associated with the buildings. According to the proponents environmental submissions, the project proposes to generate building GHG emissions of 2,200 Tons per year, and suggests it could offset those emissions with solar arrays. However, this is deceptive, because the project makes no commitment to install any solar arrays. The project only claims the installation will be "solar ready" for possible future solar panels, which it is under no obligation to install.

But even if they did someday install a massive solar array to offset the building emissions, it would be deceptive and misleading to claim this project net-zero because there would be no offset consideration at all for the massive aircraft emissions.

Facility-related emissions are negligible compared with the aviation emissions. For example, the projected 2,200 Tons facility GHG emissions are approximately 1% of the expected 180,000 tons of emissions from the aircraft housed there.

The primary source of aviation-related emissions is jet aircraft flight. This project, although it clearly is designed to enable private luxury jet operations, takes no account of such emissions. No local, state, or even federal policy accounts for aircraft emissions as part of any permitting or decision process.

Once aircraft facilities are constructed, and operations commence, it is against federal law for Massport or any locality, agency, or state government to attempt to regulate or limit the resulting aircraft operations.⁸; There is no turning back.

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