WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. >> When Barack Obama vacationed on the island of Oahu, in his native Hawaii, temporary flight restrictions — TFRs — severely hampered small plane traffic and commerce at Honolulu International Airport and two municipal airports.

“Lengthy island-wide TFR disrupting training … thanks Obama!” one person posted in a 2013 newsletter of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

The comment should sound familiar to people affected by restrictions the Secret Service has imposed on Palm Beach County airports for when President Donald Trump stays at his Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago mansion.

While the disruptions have been financially painful in both tropical paradises, aviation firms in Hawaii suffered less, for two important reasons.

First, Obama vacationed in Oahu nine times in eight years. Trump has been president for five weekends, and just spent his third weekend in a row at Mar-a-Lago; he also visited as president-elect for longer periods during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Second, most of the times Obama visited Hawaii, he stayed in the Kailua area on the east side of Oahu. That placed all three airports outside a 10-mile zone of heavy restrictions.

Palm Beach International Airport, and to an even more damaging extent, the Lantana airport, haven’t been as lucky.

By edict of the U.S. Secret Service, any time the president is at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, a package of flight restrictions is in place. They effectively shut down the Lantana airport and impose strict limits at other Palm Beach County airports that include requiring small plane pilots be cleared by authorities at other airports before they fly in.

Aviation businesses at PBIA and the county’s three general aviation airports say Trump’s past two weekend stays at Mar-a-Lago have cost them about $250,000 in business, and some of their customers, worried about continued Trump visits, already are fleeing to other airports.

According to the U.S. Air Force and Palm Beach Post archives, Obama flew Air Force One into PBIA five times. He made three visits to Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast that involved at least one night’s stay.

Obama was no spendthrift when it came to globetrotting. In December, Judicial Watch, citing Secret Service and Air Force documents, reported that, in eight years, he incurred travel expenses totaling nearly $97 million.

Obama’s Hawaii visits nearly all were around the holidays, and nearly all for two weeks or so at a time, most recently Dec. 20 to Jan. 5 as his presidency wound down, according to Hank Bruckner, general aviation officer for Kalaeloa Air Field. The former military air field on the island’s south side is about three miles west of Honolulu International and is its primary “reliever airport.”

Bruckner also said that unlike Florida, which sees a lot of out-of-town pilots, Hawaii — 2,200 miles from Los Angeles — mostly has the same pilots year in and year out, and they came to know the rules.

“There’s always going to be one guy that doesn’t read NOTAMS — “notice to airmen” — Bruckner said last week. “Next thing he knows he’s intercepted by a helicopter with a sign that says, ‘Follow me.’”

Reginald Perry, who operates the Barbers Point Flight School at Kalaeloa, said he lost about $15,000 every time Obama came in. That’s because even though Kalaeola was outside the 10-mile ring, Perry still had to have his planes and his student pilot clients vetted by both the Transportation Security Administration and the Secret Service, well in advance. Things got complicated when the school got walk-ins, he said.

“It was always a pain for me,” Perry said from Hawaii.

On top of that, while Trump pretty much stays put at Mar-a-Lago, Obama sometimes would stay at other parts of Oahu — such as the north side — and the restriction rings would move with him. When he stayed with friends on the north shore, nearby Dillingham, the island’s second municipal airport, was shut down.

“The TFR was a moving target,” Perry said.

Perry said he eventually decided to shut down the school during the times Obama spent the holidays there and use that time for maintenance. He said the volume is about the same for him during the holidays as the rest of the year.

“I love Trump, and I am 100 percent sympathetic (with the Lantana businesses),” Perry said. “I know exactly what they’re going through.”

He blames the TSA and the Secret Service, who he said didn’t work closely enough with him and other aviation firms.

“If they would come out and actually talk to the people and find out what our requirements are, it would be OK,” Perry said. “They give blanket restrictions that affect everybody.”

The Secret Service did make some tweaks to the 30-mile ring around Obama — a ring that encompassed the entire island of Oahu — after working with the airports and the state and with the AOPA, which represents 350,000 private pilots and airplane owners nationwide, 25,836 of those in Florida.

But the concessions were for outside the 10-mile zone, something that wouldn’t help PBIA and Lantana.

The AOPA also helped lobby the Secret Service to tweak “no fly” zones for New York during the Trump transition, said Jim Coon, AOPA’s senior vice president for government affairs.

The group now is working with businesses and legislators to press the Secret Service for a break in South Florida as well. It especially hopes the agency will agree to the cutout corridor the Lantana businesses have been urging. It would let planes come and go to the west and southwest, allowing them to operate while not threatening the president’s security.

The AOPA has a meeting with the FAA on Feb. 27 and, “We’re hopeful we can find a balance” between security and livelihoods, Coon said.

If the Secret Service won’t OK the cutout, AOPA will continue to work with elected officials “to ensure the Trump administration understands the economic impact,” Coon said. “Especially if the president’s going to be in Mar-a-Lago often.”

MAR-A-LAGO FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS

— A ring of 1 nautical mile: “No fly” zone around Mar-a-Lago. All commercial flights that normally would leave or arrive on a straight line from PBIA must instead angle north or south.

— A ring of 10 nautical miles: Bars all private planes from landing at either PBIA or Lantana unless they come from a “gateway airport,” at which they’ve been screened by the Transportation Safety Administration. It allows commercial flights, air traffic related to Trump, approved law enforcement and medical flights and U.S. Coast Guard flights.

— A ring of 30 nautical miles: Allows only planes traveling to or from fields outside the 10-mile ring, all of those closely monitored by air traffic controllers. It stretches nearly to Witham Field in Stuart, west nearly to Belle Glade, and south to Pompano Beach.

— Once planes land at Lantana: They cannot leave.

— Banned at Lantana: All flight training, practice approaches, parachuting, and flights of aerobatic aircraft, gliders, seaplanes, ultralights, gliders, hang-gliders, balloons and even crop-dusters. Also banned: banner-towing and sightseeing, maintenance test flights, model rockets and aircraft, utility and pipeline surveys, and drones.

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