To Our Customers
An Open Letter to Our Customers,
In the midst of this pandemic we have all faced significant changes in our daily lives. While a crises can bring sadness and pain it also can bring countless examples of selfless dedication to sacred oaths that serve as a reminder of the good that resides in all of us. I am amazed at how Granite Staters have all come together to support one another under very challenging times and I am proud to lead an airport that has played a role in supporting the state response. Airports often serve as powerful logistic engines during any humanitarian or natural disaster. This is in the Airport DNA and why there is an inherent federal interest in airport operations. Through bringing to bear the necessary supplies, equipment, and expertise; airports are often where the healing begins. The scale of this crisis is unlike any other we have faced and the role of our airport, and the tapestry of airports across the globe that we are a part of, has perhaps never been more important. At the core, an airport serves to connect and that connection can go two ways. Sometimes we receive a resource from another community and sometimes we provide a resource to another community. And this is the reason I penned this letter to you, to help illustrate the necessary work that is ongoing at the airport by our dedicated employees, airlines, federal employees, and our business partners.
These past few weeks, the airport has fulfilled this role with pride and professionalism. Be it helping a passenger get to Houston so he can train first responders on his company’s advanced life support equipment, to receiving 91,000 pounds of donated personal protection equipment on a chartered FedEx MD-11 aircraft, to receiving 150,000 facemasks on a UPS A300 aircraft; the airport has played, and will continue to play, a large role in our community response to the pandemic. How timely, and how important, was that gentleman’s trip to Houston and how many Houstonians were saved because they had a first responder that had the necessary skill set? How many lives in New Hampshire were saved because nurses, doctors, and paramedics had that PPE? Sure, they could have gone to another airport, but that would introduced a delay in that gentleman getting to Houston or that PPE getting to the front lines. And in this pandemic, delay can bring terrible results. That is why we remain open and that is why airlines are still flying. The men and women of the airport responded to ensure that the airport was open, operational, and most importantly, safe. If not for the collective efforts of the entire aviation ecosystem at MHT, these stories would not have been told here in Manchester and maybe not at all.
We may not know the exact date of when we will all “return to normal” but we do know this: we are one day closer than we were yesterday and one week closer than last week. We will keep putting one foot in front of the other. We will keep serving the Granite State with pride and professionalism. We will keep a laser focus on your safety as your safety has always been, and will always be, our number one priority. We will move forward confident in that fact that this storm will eventually run out of rain, we will break through the clouds, and the sun will shine upon us all once again!
Wishing you Blue Skies –
Ted Kitchens and the entire MHT Team