Port City Air: Without fanfare, Pease airport services provider boosts Seacoast economy

PORTSMOUTH — Ned Denney acknowledges most people “don’t have a clue” that 150 people work for Port City Air.

But Denney, the chief executive officer of Port City Air, says the company's facility is a "beehive of activity" every day and a key economic driver in Portsmouth and the Seacoast.

The fixed base operator, or FBO, is headquartered on Grafton Drive at Portsmouth International Airport at Pease. Founded 20 years ago, Port City Air services airlines and companies from all over the world, along with the U.S. Air Force and military, he said.

“Ninety-five percent of our customer base over the course of a year comes from elsewhere. Our customers are in Italy, our customers are in Germany, our customers are in San Francisco,” Denney said during a recent interview and tour of Port City Air’s facilities at Pease, which features five hangars.

A fixed-base operator is an entity that provides aeronautical services at an airport, including but not limited to fueling, according to Michael Mates, director of engineering for the Pease Development Authority, which oversees all operations at the Pease airport.

Full-service aviation company

Denney said Port City Air, known as PCA, is “a fixed based operator but we’re way more than that.”

“We’re really a full-service aviation ground-handling company,” he said during an interview at PCA’s headquarters last week. “And I would say 10 to 15% of our business is traditional FBO business.”

PCA has an “FAA designation for their full service maintenance department” with four different divisions that can handle repairs and maintenance of “any type of aircraft,” he said, including jets and helicopters.

“We specialize in anything that’s strange, weird, bulky,” Denney added.

Their hangars are home to as many as 70 different aircraft at one time, he said.

PCA has invested more than $20 million in equipment needed to handle the largest commercial and military aircraft seeking to land at the Portsmouth airport.

Only Allegiant Airlines flies commercial flights in and out of Portsmouth, which Denney called a “snoozefest” in terms of just commercial aviation.

But those Allegiant flights — which are processed by PCA staff on the ground — represent just a small portion of what the company does, he said.

“We are busy every single day and no one knows that, and that’s one of our problems. We just put our head down and do our job every day," he said.

Civil Reserve Air Fleet flights help keep PCA busy

While only Allegiant offers commercial flights out of Pease, Denney said, there are a number of high-profile — and lesser-known commercial airlines, too — that regularly fly in and out of Pease transporting military passengers and cargo.

“You want to ask about commercial airliners, we have United, Delta, Atlas, Polar, Kalitta, Breeze was here yesterday and JetBlue,” he said. “And then there’s airlines you’ve never even heard of, like National Airlines.”

All those airlines he mentioned transport military passengers and cargo into Portsmouth, often as a stop before they head overseas, Denney said, as part of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF).

The airlines “contractually pledge aircraft to the various segments of CRAF, ready for activation when needed,” according to an Air Force webpage on the program.

“To provide incentives for civil carriers to commit aircraft to the CRAF program and to assure the United States of adequate airlift reserves, the government makes peacetime DOD (Department of Defense) airlift business available to civilian airlines that offer aircraft to the CRAF,” according to the website.

Denney explained, “Ten years ago almost 100 percent of all the CRAF program traffic went through Bangor, Maine.”

“Today 80% of that traffic goes through here,” he said. “That happens because of service, that happens because we forge personal relationships with the airline staff.”

PCA crew sells Portsmouth, leader says

He credited PCA staff with working to make military planners and schedulers aware CRAF flights could land here, and what Pease and Portsmouth have to offer.

He credited Stephanie Pratt, PCA’s director of sales and marketing, with helping to bring the CRAF flights to Portsmouth.

“What she has done with her group … is to get people aware of what we do here and how we do it,” Denney said.

She and other PCA employees also regularly book military crew at local hotels and send them to Portsmouth restaurants, Denney said.

“We do over 12,000 hotel rooms a year,” he said. “We have special meetings with the hotel people sometimes.”

He acknowledged that the city of Portsmouth and all it has to offer has helped attract the flights here.

When at first PCA had some trouble attracting CRAF flights to Portsmouth because passengers/crew needed as many as three meals, they developed their own catering company, Jamie McCarthy, PCA’s director of FBO operations, said.

“That included upscaling the commercial kitchen so we were able, by having that capability, to attract these CRAF flights,” he said.

McCarthy stressed the physical location that used to be home to the Pease Air Force Base “has been here forever” but it wasn’t developed.

It's grown to where it is now, he said, “because Port City Air put the investment and equipment and people into it to make it all happen.”

About 80% of PCA’s operations involve the military, Denney said.

That includes at times hosting flights from other countries' military aircraft, he said.

“We’ve had the Royal Air Force, the RAF, you’ll see the Swedish Air Force from last week,” Denney said as he shared a PCA flight schedule during the tour. “We have the Italian Air Force coming in this week.”

The reason PCA is able to attract the flights that they do, which gives them the opportunity to continue to grow, is “all about service,” Denney said.

“If you come here, you land, and we take care of all of your needs, hotel reservations, restaurant reservations,” he said. “We provide you with crew cars … we have about 30 crew cars, which we give out to people to go to the local hotels.”

Because of the airport’s 2-mile runway — and PCA’s investment in equipment — it can also attract cargo flights that other airports can’t handle, Denney said.

“One of our biggest customers is Antonov Airlines, which is one of the largest cargo operations in the world that’s based out of the Ukraine,” he said. “You can imagine how busy they’ve been.”

Mayor touts PCA's economic impact in Portsmouth

Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern said he knows “the folks over at Port City Air and I have toured their facility.”

“I’m impressed with the work they do in terms of their commitment to the United States armed forces,” McEachern said Wednesday.

He's proud of PCA's willingness and ability to work with the civilian flights carrying U.S. military.

He also believes Port City Air is a “big economic driver” to the Portsmouth and Seacoast communities.

“They engage the local community in a lot of ways, jobs is certainly one of the big aspects, but so is working with Allegiant on the flights down to Florida and the military flights they’re involved with,” McEachern said.

Many people might not notice all they bring to the community, he said, “but the whole economy works together in no small part because of the work Port City Air does, whether that’s sending people to our local hotels or downtown restaurants.”

Million Air application at Pease has stalled, would have been a competitor for PCA

Port City Air has opposed the effort by Million Air, which is also known as Pease Aviation Partners LLC, to open a competing fixed based operator off Exeter Street at Pease, because of environmental concerns about the site, attorney Jake Marvelley, who represents PCA, said Wednesday.

Seacoastonline reached out to Pease Development Authority officials on Wednesday for an update on the status of Million Air’s application, which appears to be stalled at this point.

Tiffany Eddy, the spokesperson for the PDA, said, “Pease Aviation Partners has not sought to move its site plan and subdivision application before the PDA Board of Directors acting as a Planning Board.

“At this point, deadlines for consideration of that application under the PDA land use control have expired,” she said. “As a result, there is no further action for PDA to take at this time.”

Will PDA become a fixed based operator?

During a May 2023 PDA Board of Directors meeting, Steve Duprey, the board chair, raised the prospect of whether the PDA should consider creating its own FBO at the airport.

Paul Brean, the PDA’s executive director, in response to a Seacoastonline inquiry, stated “the PDA Board has expressed a desire at its public board meetings to learn more about airport FBO models.”

“The PDA is fortunate to have an engaged and informed board that seeks to understand the various types of ground service programs at commercial airports,” Brean said Wednesday. “This review will allow the board to gain insight into operational, economic, and sustainable practices that will ultimately factor into future decision-making that prioritizes making the airport as self-sustaining as possible.”

Asked about the relationship between Port City Air and the PDA, Brean said in part that “daily, the PDA as the airport owner and operator, and Port City Air as an FBO, work together to manage commercial operations and the military transient programs at the airport.”

“For the flying public to be served appropriately, an airport owner/operator and an FBO should work in synergy,” he said in response to a Seacoastonline question. “Considering what we accomplish daily at Portsmouth International Airport, I would say that synergy has been successful.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Port City Air touts big impact at Pease airport in Portsmouth NH