O’Brien should work on a Bay area two-fer
News is that the city manager was recently in San Jose for meetings with the San Jose Sharks NHL team about relocating their AHL franchise to Worcester. Worcester could realistically get a two-for-one deal. In addition to the business of hockey, Worcester has another vested interest in the Bay area: The corporate headquarters for Virgin America Airlines, the U.S.-based, startup, discount airline of Virgin mogul Richard Branson will be based in the Bay area. The Virgin America Airlines business model will be based on and compete directly with Southwest and Jet Blue. It will have the money, management and expertise in place to compete. All it will need will be airports. As Southwest has Providence and Manchester covered and Jet Blue has Boston, why not pitch Worcester as a New England hub for both the hockey team and an airport ?
Same Time Next Year
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It’s been nearly a year since I wrote about the problems that come from
having 11 bosses who are not on the same page about anything, as well as
suggestion...
5 months ago
5 comments:
On Virign America's website, under the Q and A section, it says they only plan to serve "well established cities where people have proved they want to fly."
www.WorcesterAirport.blogspot.com
Ya your city took the Cleveland Barons, from Cleveland, OH.
Good news for Youngstown as we have a new Hockey Franchise; the Youngstown Steelhounds in our great new arena in the thriving downtown Youngstown.
www.downtownyoungstown.com
The AHL affiliate of the Youngstown Steelhounds will be the Worcester Sharks.
Another thing that the cities have in common.
Alec, Regarding your point...
On Virign America's website, under the Q and A section, it says they only plan to serve "well established cities where people have proved they want to fly."
This is correct, but you have to consider some items in Worcester's favor:
1) What slots will be available at Logan airport for Virgin American to use.... Independence Air's old slots? ....not exactly prestigious.
2) Virgin ATLANTIC already serves Logan, albeit in the International terminal for their flights to the UK.... could you just IMAGINE the chaos hurried travelers would create if they were on a Virgin AMERICAN flight and went to Virgin ATLANTIC instead? This would behoove Massport to push Worcester as a prime location for Virgin AMERICAN.
3) Jet Blue won't exactly roll over and allow a competitor into Boston hence Jet Blue would also pressure Massport to push Worcester instead of Logan.
4) The Jet Blue effect in Boston would also apply to Southwest's pressure in Manchester and Providence.
5) The previously debated point about changing Worcester Airport's name to Boston-Worcester would be great leverage in this situation.
6) Southwest and Jet Blue, the business model Virgin American is following eventually worked up to big city airports, they started in smaller locales to keep costs down, once again another win for Worcester.
7)Worcester's living costs vs. Boston's. Once again, Worcester wins out. If Virgin American would have a heavy presence at Worcester, their employees living costs would be appx. 30% cheaper than Boston's.
I could go on and on. This debate is great as it brings many ideas to the table.
Keep up the good work, guys!
Best Regards,
Harry Tembenis
Worcester, Ma
When I envisioned the blog, it would look exactly like this... These are all great comments.
The only thing missing in this blog is the airport administration... Hey, they do not have to agree with us.. Tell us why we are wrong but say something, anything????
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