February Airport Commission Meeting

Steve Foley attended the meeting. Here is a quick summary:

• The new Airport Commission Chairman is Mr Delehaunty, replacing Mr Nemeth.
• The Sunday Allegiant flight had been cancelled due to the storm and tookplace Monday Evening. Many of the passengers had taken the Monday Morningflight. Phil Niddrie was giving out free coffee coupons to the inconvenienced passengers.
• Airport Minutes to be posted on City of Worcester Website, at the request of thecity, starting with January minutes.
• Parking income appears to be on target - expected net income of $15,000
• Meeting this Friday with chairs of many committees/commissions with goal to improve communications with city manager.
• Gary Rosen attended last night. Didn't say anything.
• Pat Santa Maria thought there was too little communication betweenthe Airport Commission and City Hall.
• Tim D. suggested sending representative from the airport commission to acity council meeting on a monthly bases. Rotate members.
• The Project Manager in charge of the master plan has left the company (LeighFisher?). Meeting is expected in March.Per Eric W.:
• Phase III of the capital security plan is to go forward withapplication of an explosive resistant film to be applied to all glass in theterminal.
• Pat expressed his opinion that General Aviation should be supported better.He said that he would like to see a hangar built that would house biz-jets.He commented that Fitchburg had recently build and sold about fifty smallhangars. These sold for $70,000 each. This could be funded by either privateinvestors, in which case the airport would only receive a smaller land leaseincome, or by the city, which would provide more income, but would takelonger for the various approvals. The Chair asked him to prepare, for thenext meeting, a brief summary of the highlights of his plan.
• The representative from Swissport stated that his idea for marketingincludes 'putting a stake in the ground on 495 and claiming everything tothe west' as his customer base.Everyone seemed to agree that General Aviation should be better promoted.
• Tim D brought up an idea of having a regularly scheduled meeting with allpartied involved in marketing (Niddrie, Massport, City of WorcesterPurchasing, Allegiant). The question arose as to if this would bring backthe former Airport Marketing Committee, and would the members need to beappointed by the city manager. There was not a clear consensus as to how this meeting could or should take place.
• Pat Santa Maria brought up an idea to allow car dealers to display their cars on the floor of the terminal. He would like the money brought inearmarked for advertising. A discussion took place regarding the loading capacity of the floor (there is a basement below), the ability to get cars inside the terminal, the cost of setting up backdrops, etc.Eric pointed out that you cannot specifically earmark funds. Massport is paying something like $2,000,000 per year and would want a say in how theincome was spent.
• Other notes: Airport operations last year was 65,000 (takeoffs/landings) an increase of 4000 over the previous year.
• The $1,000,000 FAA subsidy has not yet been approved. Jim McGovern isworking on getting it. His office said they expected an announcement shortly. This subsidy is based on 10,000 enplanments per year. WithAllegiant in place, ORH should have no problem making that number goingforward.
• A Change-the-airport-name discussion took place, with everyone generally inagreement that it, at worst (per Pat Santa Maria) wouldn't hurt. Most everyone else appeared to agree that it was a good idea, and almost necessary. Phil said that Allegiant is marketing to Orlando theirWorcester-Boston flight.
• He also said that another, as yet unnamed, airlineis looking at ORG specifically due to it's proximity to Boston.Next Meeting scheduled for 3/13/06.