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Danbury Airport's control tower had been slated to close April 7 as part of $637 million in federal sequestration spending cuts. The Federal Aviation Authority announced the closure March 22. But on April 5, the FAA announced a delay to June 15.
But on Friday, the federal Department of Transportation announced it had found the funding to keep the towers open for the rest of the fiscal year.
"The recently enacted Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013 will allow the FAA to transfer sufficient funds to end employee furloughs and keep the 149 low activity contract towers originally slated for closure in June open for the remainder of fiscal year 2013," it said. "The FAA will also put $10 million toward reducing cuts and delays in core NextGen programs and will allocate approximately $11 million to partially restore the support of infrastructure in the national airspace system."
Among the 149 control towers that will now stay open are these others in Connecticut: Sikorsky Memorial, Groton-New London, Hartford-Brainard, Tweed-New Haven and Waterbury-Oxford airports.
Even if the tower had closed in Danbury, pilots would have been able to fly in and out of the airport — they would just have to control landings and takeoffs among themselves, said Michael Safranek, Danbury's assistant airport administrator. "Picture a busy intersection in Danbury and remove the traffic lights and stop signs," Safranek said. "The intersection is still open, but now each car has to figure out who's going to go first."
Read the full statement from the FAA here.
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