Avelo Pushes Earliest Flight Times To
6:30 A.M.

Morris Cove neighbors will get a half-hour reprieve from
morning airplane noises starting on Thursday, as Avelo
Airlines pushes back its earliest daily from 6 to 6:30 a.m.
That scheduling change is included in a voluntary agreement
that the new budget airline struck with the city and the Tweed
New Haven Airport Authority back on June 28. 
It comes as Avelo, which first made New Haven its “East
Coast” hub last November , has grown its local commercial air
business to include nonstop flights to 14 different
communities, including Orlando, Tampa Bay, Nashville ,
Savannah, Charleston, Chicago, Washington D.C.,
and Raleigh. 
The scheduling change also comes soon after the airport
authority inked a new 43-year lease and development
agreement with Avports, a private airport management
company that plans to invest $100 million in extending the
runway and building a new, larger terminal on the East Haven
side of the property.
To quote directly from the June 28 agreement, which can be
read in full here , starting on Thursday:
• No flight will be scheduled to depart earlier than 6:30 a.m.
• No flight will take off earlier than 6:30 a.m. – even if fully
boarded and cleared for takeoff.
• No flight will push back from the gate earlier than 6:15 a.m.

• The APU [Auxiliary Power Unit] will not be turned on for any
aircraft earlier than 6:10 a.m.

THOMAS BREEN PHOTO

Airport director Sean Scanlon at May 2021 presser.

“While a half an hour might seem insignificant, in the aviation
world, it’s everything,” Tweed New Haven Airport Authority
Executive Director Sean Scanlon told the Independent in
a Wednesday phone interview. “A half hour is a big deal for
someone flying to vacation or flying to a business meeting.”
For Avelo to “hear the mayor and I,” Scanlon said, and for
them “to be responsive to concerns” about disruptive early
morning flight noises, is a good example of Avelo acting as
a responsible corporate citizen.
Scanlon stressed that the new departure times slated to take
effect on Thursday mean that “there will be no flight
scheduled to depart earlier than 6:30, and no flight will take off
earlier than 6:30, even if fully boarded and cleared for
take off.” 
Asked how many Avelo planes per day are currently flying
into and out of Tweed, Scanlon said it really depends on the
day. “The most we have on a day is 14 arrivals and
14 departures.”
Click here for an article by the New Haven Register’s Mark
Zaretsky about an airport- and city-hosted public meeting at
Nathan Hale School on June 28 — the same day that Avelo
committed to changing its departure times to accommodate

neighbor concerns. At that meeting, East Shore and East
Haven residents criticized the increased air traffic at Tweed
for disruptively loud early morning and late night flights and
exacerbating air pollution.

The key terms of the Avelo-Tweed agreement set to take
effect on Thursday pertain to early departure times. The deal
also in includes terms concerning late-night departures and
other matters related to airplane noise.
Avelo Airlines CEO Andrew Levy wrote in that June 28 letter
that, effective immediately, Avelo will follow these guidelines:
• Aircraft engines will not be started until an aircraft has
pushed back from the gate and is cleared to taxi for takeoff.
• Avelo will taxi aircraft on a single engine when
operationally feasible.
• The Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) will be turned off upon
arriving at the gate and power to the aircraft will instead be
provided utilizing ground power sources. The aircraft APU
supplies electrical and pneumatic power during pushback
from the gate and is necessary to start aircraft engines.
• No flight will be scheduled to depart after 10:00 p.m.
Presently, Avelo’s latest departure is
scheduled at 7:45 p.m.
• No flight will be scheduled to arrive after 11:00 p.m.
Later on in the letter, Levy continued:

• We will continue to make efforts to schedule flights to arrive
earlier in the evening when possible.
• We will minimize the use of aircraft thrust reversers,
whenever operationally possible, to reduce noise impact upon
landing. The planned project to lengthen the runway will
enable this measure to be used more often and help
mitigate noise.
• In addition to three Ground Power Units (GPU), which
provide electricity to aircraft, Avelo has invested in three Pre-
Conditioned Air (PCA) units, which provide heated or cooled
air inside the aircraft cabin. Avelo’s use of GPUs and PCAs
minimize APU use — which in turn significantly reduce aircraft
noise and emissions at the gate area.