Airport revenue has increased in 2025 because visits by President Donald Trump to Mar-a-Lago have diverted more traffic to Boca Raton (above). Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Rich Pollack
President Donald Trump’s nine visits to Mar-a-Lago in the first four months of 2025 may have been disruptive to some — and costly to Palm Beach County — but they turned out to be good news for the Boca Raton Airport.
With temporary flight restrictions in place during the 31 days of presidential visits, most private jets and small aircraft were prohibited from taking off or landing within a 10-mile radius of Palm Beach, with many choosing to come to the Boca Raton Airport instead.
That led to 3,600 more takeoffs and landings from January to April than in the first four months of 2024, which then translated into an increase of about $162,000 in revenue from the previous year.
It’s also about $362,000 more than from the same time period in 2019 during President Trump’s first term, when he made only six visits to Mar-a-Lago.
“It’s wonderful to have additional revenue to offset the increasing cost of operating and maintaining the airport without having to pass that on to our tenants,” said Clara Bennett, executive director of the Boca Raton Airport Authority.
In all, flight operations at the airport brought in $977,161, compared to $815,306 during the same time period last year, or about 20% more.
The airport gets revenue from flight operations through a percentage of money collected from fuel sold by the two fixed-based operators at the airport and through U.S. Customs user fees.
In all, there were 22,000 flight operations in the first four months of 2025, compared to 18,410 in 2024.
The 2024 numbers include flight training and touch-and-go operations, which were not permitted during the temporary flight restriction periods.
Flight restrictions also affected the Palm Beach County-operated airport in Lantana, which is within the 10-mile radius of Mar-a-Lago. That factored into the increase of traffic at Boca Raton Airport as some plane owners moved their aircraft to Boca Raton temporarily.
Revenue from flight operations makes up about 23% of the Airport Authority’s overall $8.2 million budget, with the vast majority of revenue coming from lease fees collected from businesses operating on airport property.
The increase in revenue since 2019, Bennett says, represents a rise in fuel costs as well as the increase in flight operations.
One of the busiest times at the airport this year came in March when there were four presidential weekend visits resulting in about 1,900 flight operations.
The flight restrictions also resulted in a change in flight patterns with planes being required to avoid flying over Palm Beach. That led to planes going over areas that they don’t usually, resulting in some calls to the airport from residents whose concerns were minimized once they learned what was behind the change.
Despite the increase in air traffic and the need for space to park additional aircraft, Bennett said the airport was able to operate with minimal disruptions.
That, she said, was the result of lessons learned from visits during Trump’s first term.
“Better planning and better communication resulted in fewer surprises,” she said.
During Trump’s previous visits, there were times when the airport was unable to accept planes coming in because of a lack of space. Part of that was due to bad weather that delayed planes from taking off, leaving no room for arrivals.
This time around, Bennett said, the airport worked closely with air traffic controllers, including talking to those at the highest level even before the inauguration to manage the flow of aircraft coming into Boca Raton Airport.
She said that the airport also coordinated with the fixed-based operators, which provide parking space and a variety of other services to aircraft on the ground, to ensure space would be available before reservations were accepted.
“It went a lot more smoothly,” Bennett said.
Security for presidential visits has been estimated to cost Palm Beach County $240,000 each day, money that county leaders hope will be at least partially reimbursed.
Comments