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Date: 8/21/2023
WESTFIELD — This is a historic year for Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport. It was 100 years ago that a group of Westfield business leaders and early aviation enthusiasts started developing a “flying field” on land owned by Vincent Barnes.
Unlike other airports in the area that began during the same era, such as the Agawam-Bowles Airport and the Springfield Airport, Barnes has not only survived during the past century but it’s also thrived. Much credit goes to the early founders who saw aviation starting to come into its own in the early 1920s, and realized the economic benefits of an airport in Westfield. It was formally dedicated Oct. 12, 1923, as Westfield Aviation Field.
The original 27-acre tract near Southampton Road on the city’s North Side — about 1,000 square feet of level, unobstructed land — was expanded to 51 acres when Vincent Barnes leased his land to the Westfield Chamber of Commerce for $1 a year to create a public airport. In the 1930s, the city bought the airport and in 1936 renamed it to commemorate Barnes following his death.
What started as a grassy field now encompasses 1,200 acres, with 3.5 million square feet of pavement and two intersecting runways, one 9,000 feet long to accommodate a wide range of civilian and military aircraft that use Barnes 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Just three miles north of downtown, the airport is a major asset to Westfield. It generates between $1.1 million and $1.2 million a year in fees for the city and property taxes paid by aviation-related businesses.
With an annual operating budget of about $1 million, Barnes provides $100,000 to $200,000 in revenue for Westfield, said Christopher Willenborg. He became manager of the airport’s civilian side for the second time in 2020 after previously serving from 1999 to 2008.
“We try to carry our own weight,” Willenborg said. “We don’t want to be a burden on the city budget — and over the last several years, we haven’t been.”
He said in the next three to five years the airport could become an enterprise account with its own budget, giving Barnes greater control over spending as well as revenue.
A major employer and an “economic engine” for the city, for Western Massachusetts and the state, Barnes is the fifth largest airport in Massachusetts and a major transportation gateway to the area.
“For individuals coming here — whether for business or pleasure — Barnes is a gateway to our region,” Willenborg said.
A 2019 statewide airport economic impact study by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Aeronautics Division found that Barnes generates 2,100 direct and indirect jobs, with an economic output of $236 million a year.
William Gonet, chair of the city’s three-member Airport Commission, said the airport is a “little aviation hub” with a powerful economic impact.
“It’s clearly an economic driver for the community,” he said. “Without Barnes, Westfield would be much poorer.”
Gonet said Barnes is successful because of “a great commission. one of the best airport managers in New England, great cooperation from the City Council and the mayor and a strong aviation community. It’s a win-win-win. Everybody’s winning because everybody’s cooperating.”
Westfield Mayor Michael McCabe said the airport is “invaluable” to the city with its strong economic impact. The mayor said Barnes’ large footprint, along with its leadership, team, has contributed to the airport’s success.
“There’s room for new hangers and expansion of existing business and the airport leadership is open to innovation and relentlessly pursues opportunities available to them,” said McCabe.
Willenborg said construction of a new taxiway this summer will open up three hangar development parcels. The estimated $1 million cost is being funded by MassDOT’s Aeronautics Division. The project will leverage approximately $10 million to $12 million of private sector investment for new hangars and directly increase airport revenues.
Part of the airport’s success story is that although it started as a civilian airfield, it’s now also a military base. The 104th Fighter Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard — established at Barnes in 1947 — occupies 200 to 300 acres of airport land. A major advantage of having a joint civilian-miliary airport is staffing costs for the control tower.
Barnes is one of 280 airports around the country with lower levels of activity where controllers are contract employees, not Federal Aviation Administration employees. The FAA subsidizes the entire cost of the contract tower controllers, partly because of the airport’s military aircraft operations.
The 104th has increased its presence as newer, faster and improved fighter planes have been deployed to the unit. McCabe said the recent Pentagon announcement that the fighter wing will get 18 F-35A Lightning fighter jets, replacing the aging F-15 Eagles flown at Barnes since 2007, will solidify the security of the Northeast corridor of the nation for two generations.
New fighters mean the fighter wing’s future at Barnes is “very bright,” said Willenborg. “This helps ensure the Air Guard’s existence at Barnes for the foreseeable future — which is very exciting, and very important, for the airport, for the community and for Massachusetts.”
Since the fighter wing is always on standby alert to protect the Northeast, Barnes is required to keep its main runway open and available, no matter what the weather.
“That’s a major responsibility for us,” said Willenborg, but it also gives Barnes a distinction unlike other airports its size.
“It also ensures that our main runway — which has a precision instrument approach — remains open in inclement weather for alert aircraft as well as for civilian operation. Only blizzard-type conditions, with poor visibility and quickly accumulating snow, would close it,” he said. “There really isn’t another airport like Barnes in Western Massachusetts.”
The first commercial passenger plane — a 10-passenger Stinson Tri-motor — began flights in 1937. American Airlines followed with DC-3s the next year and several other airlines operated DC-3s at Barnes until 1959. They were phased out as commercial airlines shifted flights to what was then called Bradley Field in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
The airport’s strength — and its niche from a civilian aircraft operations standpoint — is business aviation and general aviation, Willenborg said. There are 10 different aviation-related companies at the airport, ranging from flight schools to aircraft maintenance repair facilities to the Lifestar air ambulance service.
“We also have aircraft based here that do business in Western Massachusetts and across the country. They buy fuel here for their business jets and also may have maintenance work done,” said Willenborg. “And they pay rent — either directly to the airport, or to landlords that rent hangar space.”
During the past three years, there’s been a significant increase in marketing the airport to the community and to the region. Throughout the year, Willenborg goes to regional and national aviation industry tradeshows seeking more companies to locate at Barnes.
McCabe said as Barnes’ reputation continues to attract new business to the area that need air transportation services.
“With that comes prospects of new housing, a new workforce, increased economic stability and that ability to grow and diversify our school programs beyond mechanics,” he said.
An example of how the airport stimulates economic development in the Westfield area is Gulfstream Aerospace. It invested $20 million in a new 100,000 square-foot hangar that added 100 new aircraft maintenance technician jobs to its existing 130 employees.
Willenborg said Barnes had both airside and landside infrastructure that Gulfstream needed when it expanded its Northeast aircraft customer support facility about 10 years ago. The airport gets five to 600 transient Gulfstream aircraft that generate landing fees while Gulfstream pays ground lease rental and airport access fees.
A successful partnership also has developed between Gulfstream and Westfield Technical Academy’s aircraft maintenance program at Barnes. WTA trains high school students to become FAA-certified maintenance technicians who can then work at the Gulfstream facility.
“They’ve done just an incredible job working together to create that pipeline for students to graduate from high school and then go work for Gulfstream,” Willenborg said. “It’s a great partnership. It keeps young people in the area by providing great paying jobs, and also provides Gulfstream with skilled technicians.”
In addition to aviation mechanics, flight schools at Barnes are training tomorrow’s pilots — about 250 each year.
“A lot of workforce development for the future of aviation is taking place right here — and that’s pretty exciting,” said Willenborg.
Gonet said a lot of money has gone into making Barnes a first-class airport. He said it’s possible in the future that another terminal could be built to serve regional airlines, returning commercial service to Westfield.
“As things change, as the growth happens, we’ve got a lot of good opportunities at Barnes. There’s a lot of land and the future looks promising,” he said.