For those who have been advocating for the T.F. Green Airport runway extension, the end is in sight. Various pieces of the $250 million project are underway, and by December 2017, the main runway will be long enough to accommodate airplanes that routinely cross the continent, if not the Atlantic Ocean, without the need for weight restrictions on takeoff. But dreams of having more direct flights to faraway destinations may not come true even after the work is done.
Green has experienced years of declining passenger counts since hitting a peak in 2005. Many have assumed that the reason for the decline was the poor economy in Rhode Island (among other reasons that invariably blame the Ocean State for the drop). The runway project, once it is done, has been expected to provide a much-needed boost to business and leisure travel. And while that may be the case – only time will tell – a look at the data reveals that T.F. Green's drop in traffic may not be self-inflicted after all, and therefore, its future traffic may not be dependent on the airport project.
The truth is that at the same time that T.F. Green was losing passengers, Boston's Logan International Airport was gaining traffic. Well, really, Logan was recovering from the effects of the Big Dig – which made getting into and out of the airport very difficult – as well as gaining service from low-cost airlines that had not been serving Boston.
While there is no question that the runway extension at T.F. Green is an important improvement to the state's transportation infrastructure, by itself it will not move the needle. •