- JetBlue Embraer 190 shuttle to JFK (JetBlue's hub) was our first recommendation almost two years ago.
- Dave Ulmer, JetBlue stategic planner, actually visited ORH about last summer when Tom Moore invited him to our airport. We had about 40 people from various businesses and colleges there to greet him. Think he was somewhat impressed.
- MassPort controls both Logan and ORH
- JetBlue is working closely with JetBlue in Boston.
- Right now JetBlue has the Embraer out of Boston flying 10 shuttles per day to and from JFK and 6 shuttles to and from Dulles. Please note our airport director, Eric Waldron, told us 18 months ago that Boston would never want a shuttle to JFK.
- JetBlue knows where their passengers live. The fact they advertise in the Telegram indicates to me that they know JetBlue passengers live in our catchment area.
Why can't we work with MassPort to convince JetBlue to divert 1 or 2 of the 10 JFK shuttles and 1 of the Dulles flights to ORH???
7 comments:
Steve:
We have monies in our DOT grant remaining to offset any increased overhead to JetBlue. Not to mention our landing fees and other expenses must be lower then Boston.
Right now there are alot of people in our catchment area flying SouthWest out of TF Green. If JetBlue had a twice per day shuttle to JFK, they would own Central Mass..
I agree, however, that Hooters is our best bet right now.. We need to be asking more then one carrier to come to ORH:
I agree that jetBlue would fit ORH well, but I think that Hooters should be much more agreesively targeted.
www.worcesterairport.blogspot.com
Have any numbers been recoreded on how many passengers Allegiant are booking on their flights to and from Worcester?
Hooters has big plans in 2006 as the new Casino Opens.. Word is it begins in Youngstown... I hope we hear an announcement soon.. Service Late March-Early Aprils
It has been published that Allegiant is booking above 80% average load factors.
Herein lies one of the problems with ORH. I know how many tickets have been pledged for the AHL but we do not know how many tickets have been sold?
I think that I read in the story the other day that they planes have been having between 80 and 90 passengers on average.. Again I have no idea what the numbers are to date.
Allegiant needs to be succesful, and getting someone flying from here again was a big step, but as I noted in my comments in the JetBlue Ad thread, getting a "brand name" like JetBlue or Southwest would really be a tipping point.
I say we inspire the powers-that-be to take the remaining grant money and put it all in a nice "welcome to ORH" package for JetBlue. With the MassPort connection you could throw in a few gates or other perks at Logan as part of the deal. In Boston they call this "linkage"!
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