Following a successful outdoor opening on Memorial Day Weekend, the New England Air Museum will be reopening its five-acre outdoor grounds four days per week through June.
Every Thursday - Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m visitors will have an opportunity to see ten aircraft outside, peek inside exhibit hangars through open hangar doors, and even get a behind-the-scenes look into the museum's storage hangar, a space that is rarely open to the public. Feedback on this experience from Memorial Day visitors was overwhelmingly positive.
This outdoor museum experience will be at a discounted admission of $7.50 for adults and seniors and $2.50 for children 4-14. Veterans are free courtesy of KeyBank. The museum's hours of operation will be from Thursday - Sunday from 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. each day.
To ensure the health and safety of the museum's visitors, staff, and volunteers, the New England Air Museum will follow all COVID-19 rules issued by the Governor Ned Lamont and the Reopen Connecticut panel, and no more than 200 people will be allowed onsite at any time.
"We are excited about this opportunity to welcome visitors back to our museum," says Debbie Reed, the museum's Executive Director. "We needed to find the right balance between keeping our visitors, staff, and volunteers safe at while also providing a great experience. I believe the planning we have done will accomplish this," Reed says.
The New England Air Museum voluntarily closed its doors on March 14, 2020 to assist the state in its efforts to control the spread of COVID-19. In the weeks since, all of the museum’s interior spaces and exhibits have been thoroughly cleaned and sanitized. The museum's staff has also continued working, primarily from home, to develop educational content for families and aviation enthusiasts across the region through its NEAMathome website and social media platforms.
Details of the museum's plans for a complete reopening will be released shortly.
