SELKIRK, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Hewison Aviation has taught people how to safely take flight at South Albany Airport for nearly a decade. But this week, the lessons came to a complete stop.
“From Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, we had to ground all of our flights,” said Maura Hewison, Operations Manager at Hewison Aviation. “It was poor visibility, and it’s also really bad for the air filters on the airplanes.”
Which was a new sort of lesson for her students. “Safety is our main concern here,” added Hewison. “Taking care of our students and implying on them that it’s better to be on the ground than be up there and have anything happen.”
Running out of such a small airport made it harder for Hewison and her team than commercial airlines. “Here we just have the radio in house,” she noted. “So, we’re not actually speaking to air traffic control.”
Her planes headed back into the clouds Friday morning. Visibility is improving in the Capital Region, but our neighbors up north are still feeling the heat.
“It definitely was disappointing for us to have to ground some flights for a couple of days, but nothing in comparison to what Canada has going on right now,” said Hewison. “So, I think everybody was very understanding with having to be able to ground our flights for a few days and get back to operations as normal right now.”