Business View Magazine | November 2020

193 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2020 THE WI SCASSET MUNI C I PAL A I RPORT Red’s Eats. South of us is covered by Brunswick (Executive Airport), and further south is Portland International Airport. But ours is a jewel of an airport in the mid-coast region.” Deck adds that up until 2011, Wicasset was the only generally aviation airport within 40 miles along the coast. “Then, the Naval Air Station at Brunswick closed, and they converted the military airfield into a civilian airport,” he recounts. “When that happened, our Airport saw a big drop in jet traffic. We used to sell quite a bit of jet fuel, but we lost a lot of that to Brunswick because of their much longer runway. It also had an impact on the sales and the number of based aircraft here; we saw quite a few aircraft move over to Brunswick – mostly pilots that lived in that area because it was more convenient for them. What we did see was a good uptick in aviation gas sales in the past seven or eight years. One reason for that was because the town took over the FBO about that time and we were able to market the fuel and friendly aviation environment and to support the economic development of the region while observing the Airport’s dedication to general aviation. From 1985 to 2000 it hosted an air charter operation, but today, it is a general aviation airport, only, with some 32 GA aircraft home-based there. The Airport is also used by Life Flight, Maine’s emergency air ambulance service. “The Airport is ideally located in mid-coast Maine,” observes Ervin Deck, a local pilot who was once Wicasset Municipal’s part- time Manager. “It’s east of Portland and it encompasses some of the more popular tourist areas like Boothbay Harbor. We get a lot of pleasure-flying people coming up here from other parts of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania to their summer homes. So, it’s an ideal location to service those people, as well as visitors from Bath to Boothbay. It’s not unusual to see somebody fly up for a few hours, ride into town, and stand in line for a lobster roll at