 All right. Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for coming today. Thank you for the build teams, the airport staff teams and the media for attending this extremely exciting event, historical event in my mind of the future of this Burlington International Airport. My name is Nick Longo. I'm the Acting Director of Aviation here at the airport. I'm going to introduce, of course, the very well-known folks behind me in just a second. I did want to just quickly introduce the project, this top-off ceremony, which you see behind us. The steel being placed just within the last few weeks. This left-hand picture over here is what you're going to see this time next year when we are hoping to invite you back for our ribbon-cutting ceremony and welcome you to the new facility. Some of these other photos here are what's next in line. We call this our terminal integration project, the TIP project. The tip of the iceberg on what the future of the airport looks like. So again, thank you very much for coming today. I'd like to introduce City of Burlington Mayor Murrow Weinberger for his few words. Great. Thank you, Nick, and thanks for your service to the airport for many years now and for stepping up into this leadership role and for your work on this important project. Yeah, just to expand a little bit on the context Nick just offered, why this is such an important project both for now. It will have immediate impacts as soon as it's open, as well as for the future, this facility has been designed in such a way that as the airport grows and expands, it can be added on to and continue to serve the security needs of the airport. So thank you for joining us to recognize and celebrate this major expansion of the Burlington International Airport with the construction of this terminal integration project. Burlington has been the proud steward of this airport for 100 years now and over that time we've experienced strong support from our federal partners who recognize the importance of having a safe, thriving international airport to strengthen our local and our regional economy and to improve the quality of life for Burlingtonians and Burmoners. And in a moment we'll be hearing from a couple of federal partners, key federal partners, Senator Patrick Leahy who throughout his long career has taken a special interest and stewardship of this facility and we will then be hearing from Chris Nelson who is the Acting Federal Security Director in a moment as well. We welcome and appreciate your partnership and Nick on this project. This project would not be happening. The way that we are able to make this major investment is as a result of the $14.5 million federal grant award from the FAA. I appreciate the work of the entire federal delegation in this but especially in particular to Senator Leahy who again has been a real leader on all airport issues for many years. I'd also like to thank the entire talented airport team for shepherding this vision to reality. I spent 15 years before serving in this role trying to get buildings built know what an incredible effort that takes from dozens if not hundreds of people to get a modern building built. I know the airport team worked very hard to bring this about and I also want to recognize the construction trade team that is represented here today. Engelberth who we have done many important projects here at the airport with and elsewhere in the Burlington community is a key partner here and SD Ireland also is doing important work on this project. The expertise and skill of these teams enable the city to reliably meet the high expectations that Burlingtonians have for quality service and best in class facilities here at the airport. With each new significant undertaking the city takes on we is also a moment to reflect on the challenges the past year and a half that we've experienced as a community, as a country, as a globe really. We are embarked on this project in the wake of this major pandemic and we see the airport as an important pillar of the emotional recovery that our community needs. So many of our neighbors have had to postpone critical life events over the last year and a half the opportunity to visit with family, travel, explore or attend major events like weddings, graduations, births and funerals. The airport being open again and being with growing implements just about every week. Every time we have a trip out of here that ends in a reunion that represents an important and very much welcome return to normalcy. The prosperity of the aviation industry will be essential in advancing our economic recovery. The airport is a hub of commerce bringing visitors to the city and region connecting our economy here in Chittenden County to national and global businesses and the airport is also increasingly a home to many local innovative businesses such as spending everything from skinny pancake to beta technologies just across the parking lot here. So I look forward to being back here for the ribbon cutting and not too long and knowing that the investment in this terminal integration project will make Burlington make the airport here safer, easier to navigate and even more welcoming to visitors. So with that I am really excited that we are joined today by Senator Leahy. Senator thank you for amongst all your responsibilities. We know how much you have you're in the middle of in Washington right now. Thank you for being here and being part of this important event. It's great to see you. Thank you. Thank you, Maril. You know we've talked about this airport so much. And Nick when I was leaving home in middle sex this morning I was saying to myself I remember as a kid coming here and we sort of walked out on the runway and saw people and I told our children I had my first flight when I was a student at St. Michael's growing up in Montpeger by the airport there. I walked out on DC3 and they were singularly unimpressed other than to say did they have airplanes when you were that age dad? But I look at how this has grown and changed over the years. I think of the people who have been here. As you know I'm back and forth here all the time between here and Washington and I think how fortunate we are to have such a great airport. And this does start, as the mayor says it, a new phase of improved travel experience and increased destinations that you can travel around the country. Most people are amazed to think that we have what's a relatively small area to have an airport which is far, far better than much, much larger communities and we will have improvement in the area of security which will make it easier. Most people worry about going through security this is going to be a lot easier I think and it's going to especially happen to things like that early morning flight when you're trying to catch it. But then aviation changes all the time bigger airplanes, bigger equipment. This will allow us to adjust for it because as I tell some of these airlines you come to Burlington you're going to fill up your planes and I think this is going to help a lot. Now as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee I've tried to make sure that Burlington had a seat at the table for a number of years investing in terminals for an airport the size of Burlington International was not a priority FAA. Well, they have seen a lot of pictures of Burlington they've heard a lot from me, heard from the mayor they've heard from the airport leadership and talked about it would be nice to change this I usually raise these issues when they're in to talk about their appropriations and so we're able to secure nearly $15 million to make this project a reality. Now that might seem like a lot for an area like this but the fact is this airport is so much better than in cities much larger than in this area and so I think Nick we're going to see more and more improvements I know that and we'll keep on doing it. Mr. Mayor I remember your days when you were on the commission and to this day everything that's happened and the tremendous people we have who can do the work so I know I'm preaching to the converted but I think people have to be reminded what a treasure we have in the airport here in the Burlington Airport it's people I know other senators come up here and they are amazed to have an airport this nice in a small area some who fly into much much larger cities and the airport is nowhere near as good so keep it up, thank you. Since you mentioned the commission it was a privilege to serve on the airport commission I do want to just point out especially because he's walking away we're lucky to be joined today by Bill Keough who is the current chair of the airport commission the commission has been a big part of this project as well Bill thank you for your partnership on this. Bill and I have known each other from when our hair was dark and we had more. Thank you Senator very much. I'd like to now introduce Acting Federal Security Director Chris Nelson of course this project the intent of this project is to improve our efficiencies with security making sure the passenger experience is what we all expect out of Burlington, Vermont our partnership with the federal entity the Transportation Security Administration is daily it's hourly and Chris is a huge part of that relationship so Chris thank you for being here today. Thank you Nick and company, thank you Mayor, thank you Senator thank you Engelberth and friends of the media thank you for being here communicating and fostering relationships with stakeholders within the airport community along with our federal and state partners is crucial is a crucial element when collaborating on a project of this magnitude I'm very proud of the partnership that has been built between TSA, Vermont and our partners it has allowed us to successfully work together and navigate challenges in both day-to-day operations and large-scale developments such as this checkpoint reconfiguration project I'm excited to work alongside Acting Director Nicholas Longo and his team as we continue to focus on the mission of providing safety and excellent service to our traveling public thank you. And just to wrap things up a little bit I too want to reflect a little bit on how we got here today both with the leadership of Mayor Morone Weinberger as well as Senator Patrick Leahy I reflect two or three years ago working with you and your team on how to make this building a reality it was not easy, it was not easy for your team I assume and for our team a lot of people, a lot of thought and design went into this building just to be eligible to receive these federal funds Senator Leahy's office made that a reality for us the intent behind this building is truly to capture a more secure, a safer airport and a better experience for the traveling public there will no longer be two TSA checkpoints there will be one checkpoint which is this building there will be additional hold room space additional seating, additional capacity for potentially new airlines new entities, new concessions new future of the airport and I'm so excited to present this today to share this with all of you today to share this with the incredible airport team who have really made this a reality and made where we are today come to fruition this is no pun intended a foundation of where we are at the airport this is the steel that's going up the structure, the ability for us to move in to the future and really take off with our projections of implements and passengers and the experience to welcome people to Vermont, to the city of Burlington and of course to this Burlington international airport so thank you all very much I think we're going to open it up to questions right now there's one thing Nick, your team and Mayor Weinberger's team important, I should mention John Tracy who's the head of our Vermont office who's here let's me forget what's needed for this and he is organized with our team of people and critics and everybody else to say how do we get this funding how do we make it work it is a team effort so thank you so what are we doing now? so I'd welcome any questions on the project anything for here what we're going to do after questions is we're actually going to invite everybody to sign this beautiful white beam this steel beam behind us which will be constructed into the project open to questions right now is there a timeline for filling the aviation director position permanently? the question is about filling the aviation director role permanently and it's something that I've been in consultation with the commission about and we all have a great deal of confidence in Nick's leadership and are focused on projects like this and getting the work done right now we've not set a timeline for a permanent search we will do a search before appointing a permanent director we haven't initiated that yet and don't have a timeline for it yet the groundbreaking or topping off was delayed twice did the progress of the rock? not at all so we started right on time right when our permits allowed us to start we made immense progress with the Jacobs, the Engelberg the Ireland teams to immediately move into this with the hopes of course with topping it off, wrapping it up for winter so we can get inside and do some of the interior work in fact one of the things I missed was there are changes inside the existing terminal that will occur because of this project like I said two checkpoints consolidated into one into this building which opens up the north end of our terminal building to new opportunities in the future all that's happening within the next 12 months so we are right on time are there going to be any changes to the control tower at any time? the FAA air traffic control tower there are not in our master plan there are thoughts of designing the terminal building to the north this is very very future forward thinking to connect to that building but the tower is not going to be impacted because of that I'm just curious what the demand for flights has been like as the pandemic rages on here I know in the summer there was likely a rebound with that as the state of Vermont reopened what are we seeing now with that it's really exciting it's higher than we expected it it's growing faster than we initially thought we are working with our incumbent airlines to make sure that they have the resources that they need to continue operating I'm happy to report that all of our routes are back online except for one we have mainline air service which is a larger aircraft that is now continuing their operation over to Chicago our percentages are climbing a little bit faster than we expected right now we are between 60 to 75% of our 2019 numbers which was a historical 10 year number for us but we are also looking at our revenues too what's happening on that side of things and we are even greater on our revenue there's been some tremendous effort again on the federal side to help all airports through the country through the pandemic because of those losses but the growth of the passengers the growth of the concessionaires here at the airport and the moving forward of each one of those entities lets us realize that we are a little bit higher than we expected I know every single flight I've taken the last few months it's been a lot of it everyone has been full which means we need more planes here yes, yes, yes why don't we do the ceremony pad and then I could be available for later