Super Bowl XLVIII buzz: Celebrities who come for Super Bowl may face jet delays
A plane taxis past a control tower at Teterboro Airport. Credit: AP, 2009
Anyone who is somebody wants to go to the Super Bowl, in part to be seen, which is why television viewers often will be treated to shots of celebrities in suites. How can anyone forget Cameron Diaz feeding popcorn to Alex Rodriguez three years ago?
But behind the scenes there's an interesting subplot brewing regarding these celebrities' travel plans. Their preferred way of travel is via private jet, largely because of the convenience of entering the air whenever they so choose.
Yet come Sunday night, if they don't time their departure from the game just right, they may be facing an unusual delay of several hours waiting to take off.
See, because Teterboro Airport is within the eight-mile radius of the FAA-imposed flight restriction, no flights can leave their runway until an hour after the game. Airport officials have been told to anticipate it will take as many as five hours for all the flights to leave.
A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which runs Teterboro, says they are expecting such a mad rush of private jets eager to leave immediately after the big game ends that they've hired an "air boss" who will coordinate the order of departures.
Beginning at midnight when the no-fly restriction is lifted, planes will be allowed to take off every two minutes -- and that may last until 4 or 5 a.m., according to Kirk Stephen, the marketing manager at Meridian, one of the five terminals at the airport.
For high rollers used to leaving the runway effectively at will, the delays surely will be a surprise. Airport officials already are expecting some to play the status card to get an earlier slot in line.
Good look with that, they say.
"You might get somebody who is saying, 'We're on our way from the game and we want to leave as soon as we get there,'" Stephen said. "Well, guess what. The air boss may not allow that. What they'll do is, when your aircraft is fueled and all of your passengers and crew are there, and you're sitting and waiting, then they'll give you the green light. And then they'll determine who was first and who will go next."
Think there might be a few people playing the status card?
"Oh yeah, there will be," Stephen said. "But they'll try to keep it as fair as possible. I don't know, I suppose if the President was here he would get first dibs, but that's up to the air boss to figure that out."
Strawberry, Gooden linked but not close
Former Mets and Yankees slugger Darryl Strawberry, making the rounds on Super Bowl's Radio Row for the second straight day to publicize his new recovery center, said he didn't read Dwight Gooden's most recent book "Doc: A Memoir." He said he was surprised to have learned that Gooden took some shots at him.
Gooden wrote about how Strawberry spoke bad about him behind his back, revealing that even though they are forever linked together as one-time Mets phenoms and teammates, today they have no relationship to speak of.
"I know what friends are and how they treat each other," Gooden wrote in his book. "I won't make the mistake of thinking Darryl and I friends."
When that was relayed to Strawberry, he shrugged and said, "We never was [close]."
