Prez security has owners just plane mad !

http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view/2011_0821he_inside_track_headline/srvc=home&position=6

Prez security has owners just plane mad!
By Gayle Fee And Laura Raposa with Megan Johnson Inside Track
Sunday, August 21, 2011 - Updated 3 hours ago



EDGARTOWN — Martha’s Vineyard workers and visitors may gripe about gridlock when President Obama decides to take his 15-car motorcade to the golf course this week, but pity the poor private-plane owners: They are soooooo inconvenienced by the First Vacation, many will boycott The Rock!

“In prior years we lost about 75 to 80 percent of our business,” said Martha’s Vineyard Airport manager Sean Flynn. “But the process has been improved upon this year and we’re hoping that more people will be willing to fly.”

An FAA Temporary Flight Restriction is in place over the island for the duration of the presidential vacation, meaning that no private planes can fly directly into the Vineyard without first stopping at one of three “gateway aiports” for a sec-urity screening. The gateways are Hyannis, Providence and White Plains, N.Y., and private jets must register by phone 24 hours in advance in order to clear their passage to the Vineyard.


“Everybody’s pissed,” said one summer rez who hobnobs with the rich and famous. “You have to call in advance to sign up for what amounts to a proctology exam and if you are flying late at night, sometimes there’s only one person around and you end up waiting and waiting.”

Can you just imagine the inconvenience!!!

One private-plane owner, who asked to remain nameless, cut his vacation short last week so he wouldn’t have to deal with the flight restrictions.

“I know people have little sympathy for this kind of stuff,” he said. “But it’s extra fuel, an extra landing, it’s an imposition and it’s just not good business.”

The high flier said originally the Secret Service wanted to route all traffic — even the flights from the Boston area — through White Plains, where the private jet would have to pick up an agent, fly with the agent to the Vineyard, then be responsible for flying the agent back to New York.

“It was ridiculous,” he said. “Fortunately they changed it, but I didn’t want to deal with any of it, so I just left.”

Flynn said most of the private plane traffic to the Vineyard comes from summer home owners traveling from the New York metro area. (Not, in our experience, the most patient people.) And on a busy August day, as many as 700 small jets could be headed to for The Rock — setting up a potential security-line situation at the gateways to rival Logan International Airport at spring break!

“Private fliers are used to being able to go between Point A and Point B without restriction and whenever there is restriction, there’s griping,” Flynn said. “But people generally understand that you are not going to have free flight over the island when the president is visiting, and as much as possible, they have put a process in place that achieves the goal with a minimum of effort.”

File Under: Fear of Flying.
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If we had "President" John Kerry, they wanted to shut down Nantucket Harbor.
Imagine if JFK was today. Close Lewis Bay!