Retiring MacArthur Airport Manager Set for Takeoff
By Thomas Maier, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
Oct. 22–Mohawk.
Allegheny.
Carnival Air.
American.
The plastic model jets perched on Al Werner’s office bookcase bear the names of airlines that have come and gone during his 53 years at Long Island MacArthur Airport.
Some have merged. Some have gone bankrupt. And others have flown the coop, unable to make a profit here.
Werner, who officially retires as a town commissioner managing the airport on Nov. 16, says his favorite old-timer was Northeastern, a now defunct carrier, which livened up the once sleepy airport in the early 1980s.
“They started flights to Florida and put us on the map,” says Werner, 78, recalling the flow of snowbirds and other Long Islanders who found a cheaper way to visit Florida.
After a stint in the Air Force, Werner, who grew up in Bayport, started in 1951 as an air traffic controller in the tower. At that time, the airport was still being used as a testing ground for military and commercial freight purposes and hadn’t developed much of a commercial airlines business. In those days, most Long Islanders flew out of either LaGuardia or Kennedy (then called Idlewild) airports in Queens.
One of the most dramatic early events, Werner recalls, was a 1956 crash of a training plane that killed three people. It had barely gotten off the ground. “I was working in the tower that day and I was stunned,” he recalled, looking out the window from his second-floor office.
Over the years, Werner helped to shape many of the changes at the regional airport, a 1,300-acre site that Islip purchased for $10 from Suffolk County in 1942. It now serves 2 million passengers annually and made $300,000 in surplus last year, officials say.
By far, the biggest boom for the airport was the arrival of Southwest Airlines in the late 1990s, which financed a large expansion of the terminal and doubled the amount of airport traffic. The airline brought nonstop service to places like Las Vegas and Baltimore-Washington airports as well as several Florida locales.
Werner says the modern airport’s ambitions really began in 1966 with the opening of its familiar oval-shaped terminal building with two ramp gates leading to the tarmac. In the late 1980s, two concourses were added, followed a decade later by Southwest’s two large additions, which included eight more gates. The number of passengers soon doubled at the airport.
Tucked into the heart of Long Island, the airport has neighbors who still sometimes complain about the noise from planes passing overhead, though recent improvements in jet designs have made it somewhat quieter. Werner says community relations are often the most important part of an airport manager’s job.
“I remember one civic leader who didn’t like us because of the noise,” he remembered with a bemused grin. “He said he hated us so much he flew out of LaGuardia.”
BIZ FACTS
MacArthur Airport opened in 1942 with a 50,000-square- foot terminal.
The terminal now spans 241,254 square feet, after Southwest Airline’s expansion.
Bustling airport
Number of people using Long Island MacArthur airport.
1981 164,336
’91 1,190,905
2001 2,048,554
’06 2,313,419
2007 1,629,124 (As of Sept. 1)
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