Can Hilton Head airport screen for coronavirus? Can it close? Your questions answered
When a plane from Atlanta landed at Hilton Head Island Airport on Friday, only seven people got off.
Most were wearing gloves or a mask, trying to protect themselves from coronavirus as it infects thousands across the country.
But they were traveling, and that’s what frightens many on Hilton Head Island.
As much of the island shuts down to slow spread of coronavirus, the airport is still functioning — barely.
The trickle of arrivals from the northeast, where the virus has overloaded hospitals, worries residents and town leaders, but flight loads and numbers of arrivals appear closer to zero than 100, according to airport officials.
Here are answers to five major questions about the Hilton Head airport:
How many people are arriving on Hilton Head?
Jon Rembold, county airports director, said Friday that flights are arriving with so few passengers that the airport is no longer using flight loads measured by percentage, but measuring arrivals by individual person.
Still, people are arriving.
Flight loads for the past week have been “all over the place,” Rembold said. “It ranged from five to seven people to maybe 25 to 30 people at the highest. ... It’s been all over the map, and it’s impossible to predict.”
Rembold said American Airlines has canceled several flights from Charlotte, and Delta canceled flights earlier in the week.
Are people coming from New York?
A scan of the arrivals at Hilton Head Airport Friday showed that 13 flights were scheduled to land.
Four of those flights were canceled. All were American Airlines flights due to arrive from Charlotte.
The remainder of flights were due from Beaufort; Atlanta; Statesville, North Carolina; Albany, New York; Teterboro, New Jersey; and one from Charlotte.
The planes arriving from Beaufort, Teterboro and Albany were either charter planes or private jets operated by Planemasters, Delta Private Jets and NetJets Aviation, respectively, flight data show.
Can we stop people coming from highly infected areas?
Is Hilton Head Airport able to limit the arrival of people from New York and Washington to Hilton Head? “I have zero ability to do that,” Rembold said, “and I don’t know how you would do that.”
According to the list of arrivals to Hilton Head, there are no direct commercial flights from New York arriving to the island.
However, two private jets from New York and New Jersey arrived Friday.
Dozens of online comments and letters to the editor of The Island Packet urge the airport to stop passengers from coming to the island from northeastern states where the coronavirus outbreak is more widespread.
“New York is the epicenter of infections in the U.S. and exploding in numbers so alarming that the federal government is asking for anyone leaving New York to self quarantine for 14 days,” one letter writer said. “We may be able to avoid these drastic measures if our mayor would take decisive action and close this island to all tourists.”
Rembold said the airport is not currently screening temperatures to detect fever —a symptom of coronavirus — in people arriving at the airport, and officials have not discussed taking that step.
Large airports such as Los Angeles International started screening passengers arriving from China earlier this month to attempt to detect COVID-19 symptoms, and some smaller tourist-oriented airports have followed suit.
Earlier this week, Horry County Department of Airports announced it would begin voluntary screenings for people arriving at the Myrtle Beach Airport from metropolitan areas heavily impacted by coronavirus.
The department didn’t cite specific places, but Horry County spokesperson Thomas Bell told Myrtle Beach Online the voluntary screenings would take place upon exiting the aircraft.
“It isn’t mandated, but passengers have been receptive to it,” Bell told the newspaper.
Can the airport close?
Rembold said the Federal Aviation Administration has jurisdiction over whether to close an airport, not Beaufort County Council or the Hilton Head Island mayor.
“While aviation can be conducted safely, you cannot close a federally obligated airport,” he said. “We’re like the interstate highway system but for airports. ... You can’t go out and close the interstate.”
He said the airport has closed in the past when the airport runway is unsafe to use, such as during a hurricane.
But local officials have little say in that.
“An order from the FAA would have to be sent out” to all airlines and pilots, he said.
What about United flights scheduled to start this weekend?
United Airlines was scheduled to resume seasonal flights between the island, Washington Dulles International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and New York/Newark Liberty International Airport this weekend.
The flights started in 2019.
Rembold said all those United flights have been canceled except the flight from Dulles.
Flights are scheduled only for weekends, he said, so the status of the flights for next weekend may change.
