Veteran Air Force pilot Steve Parker, CEO of Somerset Air Service and third-generation operator of Somerset Airport (KSMQ) in Bedminster, New Jersey, alerted his customers on January 16, that they are likely in for a reprise of the Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) experienced during the previous Trump Presidential Administration. SMQ rests just a few miles south of Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster and is effectively closed down when the President is in residence. Parker’s customers include operators of approximately 100 general aviation aircraft, many of which are used for personal business flying as well as individual and family transportation. Somerset Air Service also operates a busy flight school and a small charter operation operating a cabin-class Cessna twin.
Parker wrote in his memo to customers, “With the inauguration of President Trump, we can expect he may spend some time at his Bedminster Golf Course. Like in his first term, we can expect Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) that will prevent flying from Somerset and [nearby] Solberg Airports, especially on weekends and an extended vacation likely during the summer peak flying months.” Parker, a Republican and former mayor of Bedminster, emphasized to AVweb he does not even remotely see this as a political issue. Rather, he sees it as a real problem with a potentially simple solution.
As part of the letter to SMQ customers, he explained, “In 2017 Congressman Leonard Lance (NJ-7) put forth a common-sense solution directing the FAA to perform a study for the purpose of allowing vetted pilots to fly into recurring Presidential TFRs. Pilots would have a background check and fingerprints, using the same procedures that have allowed pilots to fly into the DC Flight Restricted Zone (FRZ) for nearly 20 years without incident. This was part of the 2018 FAA Authorization bill passed by the House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and signed into law by the President. Yet the FAA failed to act on this requirement.”
Parker told AVweb that repeated inquiries to the FAA on the progress of the study, mandated under Section 529 of the 2018 FAA Reauthorization Act, received the answer that it was under “legal review.” Those answers continued until 2020 (after President Trump left office) when he was finally told that the study, in fact, had never launched, despite the one-year deadline stipulated in the legislation, which passed in October 2018.
Though the study that never happened also included nearby Solberg Airport and other GA airports near President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, the lack of response is particularly frustrating for Somerset customers given that the New Jersey State Police base their helicopter – bearing the markings “Homeland Security” – at SMQ, occupying a regularly staffed hangar overlooking the runway. Parker has contacted current state representative Thomas Kean, as well as the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which petitioned the FAA and the Secret Service for relief from the TFRs during the previous Trump Administration.
Somerset Air Service’s email to customers concluded with: “We need you to make your voice heard. Contact your Representative and your Senators and tell them you want the FAA to study, then implement, this common-sense solution that keeps our President safe, but allows ‘vetted’ air traffic to continue.” Parker noted that airports under the veil of TFRs protecting President Biden when he visited his residences in Delaware suffered similarly, adding, “Future Presidents will also have homes outside of Washington they will want to visit, and there will be new airports that will face what we’re facing. We just want to give this common-sense solution another shot.”
