A federal appeals court has reversed a previous federal judge's ruling, which forced business jet charter operators that sell seats to the public to use the airport terminal and TSA checkpoints, rather than the "private facilities" (FBOs) at Westchester County Airport (KHPN) in White Plains, New York.
In 2021, the airport said that charter operators must use the terminal. JSX Air and XO Global filed a complaint in U.S. district court against Westchester County in March 2022, saying they should be able to continue to use FBOs as they have been for years, even though their aircraft hold more than nine passengers, the County’s claimed long-standing cutoff rules for carriers that sell tickets to the public. The County said those rules, published in 2004, applied to public charters, and the court's opinion, handed down July 1, 2024, sided with the County.
However, the appeals court ruled on August 26 that the County “has not offered a single policy, procedure, or other written document indicating that public charters were required to use the terminal.” The 2004 law “exclusively imposed restrictions on entities that used the terminal and its ramps, and nothing in the law expressly restricted the use of non-terminal spaces (such as FBOs). To the extent another document governs plaintiffs’ use of FBOs or other non-terminal spaces, the County has not provided it.”