The BPDA board on Thursday will consider letting Cape Air dock seaplanes at Long Wharf to fly people to and from New York.

An item on the board's monthly agenda calls for amending Boston Waterboat Marina's current lease for part of Long Wharf for berthing boats to allow for up to four daily flights between Boston Harbor and the East River, as part of a year-long pilot.

Cape Air would use about 250 square feet on the wharf for loading and unloading passengers and would be given 96,625 square feet of surface area on the harbor itself for the planes to take off and whatever the water equivalent of landing is. Although Logan is just not far from downtown, New York's airports are all located at some distance from downtown and midtown Manhattan.

According to a memorandum from BPDA staff to the board, Cape Air has won FAA approval for the flights. The memo adds it would be the only airline allowed to use the facility during the one-year test and that:

Flight schedules shall be subordinate to existing waterborne ferry scheduled uses and planes will be required yield right of way to Ferry traffic in order ensure no interruption or delay in ferry service.

Cape Air's fees for using Long Wharf will be split 50/50 between the marina and the BPDA - BPDA staff expect the authority to earn a minimum of $40,000 over the year-long pilot.

Under the proposed agreement, Cape Air will not be allowed to fuel the planes at Long Wharf and would have to find someplace else to store them overnight.

The BPDA board's meeting begins at 3:30 p.m. in its ninth-floor conference room in City Hall.

BPDA staff memo on the proposed pilot.