ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ) – President Donald Trump will be in Northeast Wisconsin this weekend, as his campaign announced plans for a Make America Great Again event at Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport on Saturday.
The airport hosted another event with the president back in June, which drew a number of supporters and protesters to the airport grounds. They have also directed in flights for Vice President Mike Pence in recent weeks. With that experience under their belts already this year, airport administration is confident this weekend will go well.
“It’s something that we’ve done a few times, but always exciting regardless of who’s in the office. It’s just an interesting event to be a part of…It gives us a great chance to post some of that on social media and share it with the public that is not able to come out here for whatever reason,” said Airport Director Marty Piette. “It’s an interesting opportunity to work with secret service and the White House from a security standpoint and logistics standpoint.”
Piette added that Trump will likely take a Boeing 757, rather than the typical Boeing 747. The 757 is a smaller aircraft, but Piette says any plane the president boards is immediately assigned the Air Force One designation.
Meanwhile, administration believes that the stop won’t have too big of an impact on regular airport operations.
“There’s a certain period of time when he’s on the ground that there is a ground stop and there’s no activity around that, but it’s pretty short window,” Piette said.
The event, once again, will not leave the airport grounds. Piette says there might be a reason for that.
“We’re seeing a lot of these events being held at airports and on ramps and hangars because it gives everybody an opportunity to social distance and continue to wear the facemask and do everything that we need to do from a COVID-19 standpoint,” Piette explained.
More detailed information about the specifics of the event is expected later this week.
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