Business View Magazine | February 2021

152 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2021 delphia Airport S ituated on 1,150 acres in the northeast part of the City of Philadelphia, Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE) is Pennsylvania’s fifth busiest airport, providing “on-call” U.S. Customs, Immigrations and United States Department of Agriculture services to corporate international travel. In 2019, the words ‘resilience’ and ‘renewal’ were front and center at PNE, where the outlook at the time was full of sunshine at the largest general aviation airport in the region. One year later, thanks to the impact of COVID-19, that two-word focus has become more important than ever, as Airport Manager John M. Brewer Jr. and his dedicated staff seek to rise above funding cuts, cancellations, staff shortages, and sickness. And keep a positive attitude. Brewer accepts the challenges without any sense of complaint – just an acknowledgement that it has been an incredibly hard year that has taken a lot of effort to ride out. Operationally, air traffic took a hit in 2020, as well. Northeast Philadelphia was at one point down to 40 percent of regular traffic. In December, they were still down about 20 percent from 2019 even after some internal adjustment to correct the figures regarding traffic numbers. “As a result of COVID and the ensuing pandemic, our federally staffed FAA Air Traffic Control Tower reduced its hours dramatically,” Brewer explains. “For years, the tower would open at six in the Resilience and renewal AT A GLANCE NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA AIRPORT WHAT: Busiest General Aviation airport in the State and 5th busiest airport overall in the State WHERE: Northeast part of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania WEBSITE: www.phl.org/business/PNE