Stewart Airport – Regional airport capacity needs can be met in large part by a developing Stewart Airport, a consultant finalizing an FAA Regional Air Service Demand Study told the Stewart Airport Commission Tuesday.

The Newburgh area airport has an abundance of airfield capacity and the potential for growth with annual projected passengers of over three million by 2025. In 2005, there were about 400,000 leaving and arriving at Stewart.

Much of that potential growth will be driven by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s takeover of the airport starting later this year.

Consultant Charles Van Cook told the SAC that Stewart has great potential.

“It’s Stewart’s moment in time,” he said. Extending its crosswind runway would also increase runway capacity. That secondary airstrip is 6,000 feet. Its main runway is 12,000 feet long.

With Stewart’s current market coming predominantly from the Mid-Hudson Valley, the study found it has additional market potential in Westchester and Fairfield counties, as well as north Bergen and Passaic counties.

Issues facing the growth of Stewart include completion of the main access road, parking, which is rapidly becoming an issue with the addition of airline service, and ground transportation.

The FAA study looked at nine airports including those in the New York metropolitan area, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

By comparison to the projected future traffic at Stewart, commission Chairman James Wright pointed to a 1973 master plan of the airport which projected 37 million passengers in 25 years. That never materialized. The airport reached its traffic peak in the mid-1990s when just under one million people flew in and out of Stewart.