Vice President Mike Pence Credit: R. Gino Santa Maria/Shutterfree via Dreamstime

Update, 5:53 p.m.: President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday afternoon that he would skip a weekend trip to Poland and would send Vice President Mike Pence in his stead. But according to Gene Richards, director of aviation at BTV, his staff contacted the U.S. Secret Service around 4:45 p.m. and was told that Friday’s plan was still a go.

Vice President Mike Pence is returning to Vermont for Labor Day weekend.

The nation’s No. 2 executive is expected to land at Burlington International Airport around 2 p.m. Friday, BTV aviation director Gene Richards said. The aircraft, which Richards said will probably not be the large jet traditionally thought of as Air Force Two, is expected to taxi to one of the Vermont Air National Guard ramps.

The airfield will be closed for 15 minutes before and after arrival, the aviation director wrote in a note to staff. The Federal Aviation Administration has instituted temporary flight restrictions at BTV from 1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. on Friday.

“It’s midday; it’s not really a big deal,” Richards said, noting that it could potentially affect a few commercial flights. “It’s the right time of the day. If he’d come real early in the morning, I’d have a real problem with him.”

During Labor Day weekend last year, Pence landed at BTV in Air Force Two and was greeted by both protesters and supporters before he spent the weekend on Lake Hortonia, which is south of Sudbury and north of Hubbardton on Route 30. Locals posted pictures with the VP during his visit, which included a stop at Calvin Coolidge’s summer White House in Plymouth Notch.

The FAA has instituted flight restrictions this weekend above an area that encompasses Lake Hortonia, though it’s unclear if Pence is headed back there. His office did not respond to an email seeking comment about the trip.

Richards said Pence won’t depart from BTV. The FAA has instituted flight restrictions at the Rutland-Southern Vermont Regional Airport from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Air Force Two at Burlington International Airport last year Credit: File: Taylor Dobbs

 

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Sasha Goldstein is Seven Days' deputy news editor.

19 replies on “Vice President Mike Pence to Return to Vermont”

  1. I noticed all of the trump lovers except for 2 are disliking most of the comments but are to afraid to make comments themselves.. They are morons for supporting that idiot!

  2. In honor of our Vice President’s visit please abstain from marrying your same sex partner this weekend. Lock your children in their rooms for a few extra hours. Light a candle in remembrance of the death penalty. And please please assign your desperately hard working Latino guest workers to a work locale close to a main road.

  3. Hollywood couldn’t cast a bigger religious hypocrite . What religion is this,the religion of donald trump ?

  5. “Intolerance and bigotry are never welcome here, civility be damned.”

    Um . . . except the intolerance of the ultra left in Vermont.

    And I say that as someone who absolutely despises Trump, Pence, McConnell and the entire lot of them.

  7. Trump is suffering from dementia. Signs are evident. Pence knows it. He’s sold his soul to the devil to be this close to the presidency. His morality is absent. Fake Christian.

  8. Donna, Trump never paid his bill when he came to Burlington! At least the Democrats pay their bills for the most part. Trump still owes most of the states for all of his rally’s he holds and no way will he win with all of the damage he’s done to this country and made an idiot of our country to other countries. He’s just a loser!

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