June 22, 2006

Airport Meeting

I did not attend the meeting, but saw the reports on television and read the paper this morning. Let me get this right---the plan for ORH is to be a "medium growth"airport targeting 375,000 passengers. Great, how are we going to get there??? We waited 18 months for this, can't wait for the final Master Plan meeting this fall.

Yesterday I e-mailed our airport liaison, Mr Niddrie, inquiring about actual numbers for Allegiant since inception. In response I was e-mailed that Allegiant does not want this information released. Ironic that the day of the 2nd community meeting (12 months later then originally scheduled) on the ORH Master Plan to present all sorts of data from various studies, that the numbers of people flying our one commercial carrier can not be released to the public. Even more ironic is that my mother (lives one mile from ORH) woke up at 2:30AM to catch the Worcester Limo for a flight out of Boston.

Despite the fact Allegiant does not want their numbers released, I heard on the television and read in the paper that Allegiant will have its 10,000 passenger today and Monday will be their 100th flight. Not knowing which flight today has the 10,000 passenger (SAN-ORH or ORH-SAN), it was either flight 93 or 94, lets for arguement's sake say it was the 93rd flight. That equates to 107.5, rounding up 108 people per flight, with a capacity of 150 that is a 72% load. if the plane capacity if 130 (thanks YNG) then the load factor is 83%.

I would think that in order for Allegiant to make money, with their fares/the price of fuel, flying between Sanford-Worcester, they would need to be in (at the least) the 80-90% range. If Allegiant does not make money, they will stop service. Maybe we should be thinking of ways to increase the loads for Allegiant to ensure that they stay in Worcester and we reach 20,000 passengers before targeting 375,000 passengers.

Here are the facts:

  • this fiscal year ending June 30th, ORH costs the tax-payers of Worcester 1,000,00
  • next fiscal year the percentage paid by MassPort drops from 85% to 68% and ORH will cost the tax-payers of Worcester 1,500,000 (guesstimate)
  • 373 days from today the current operating agreement with MassPort ends
  • Allegian, the one commercial carrier at ORH, has loads of approximately 80%
  • ORH is on target for 20,000 passengers in 2006

Despite the fact the Telegram Editorial board feels that we are right on target, can we please

SELL ORH

10 comments:

Continue to Spread the Word!!! said...

Bill... hold up on that math... When I try to book a flight on allegiantair.com for your flights from ORH, you have a smaller jet to choose from to buy seats. That leads me to beleive you only have an available 130 seats on your jet, and I'm almost certain of that.. Your plane is an MD-80, Youngstowns 150 seater is an MD83.....

Secondly, we got cargo heading your way from Ytown today, a YNG->SFB Cargo plane.....

Bill Randell said...

YNG:

Thanks per usual.. I will find out.

Bill

Bill Randell said...

Can anyone help me on how many seats are on the Allegiant Flights?

Thanks

Bill

Anonymous said...

Allegiant flies 2 different aircraft models into ORH. Predominantly is the 130 seat MD-87 (shows up on the flight tracker as MD80) The second type which occasionally flies to ORH is the 150 seat MD-83. Allegiant substitutes the MD-83 randomly, presumably when the smaller plane fills up and they are looking to add a higher seat capacity.

Matt

Bill Randell said...

Matt:

Thanks !! Anyway you slice it we are averaging 108 passengers per flight. Depending on the plane the load factor is either 72% or 83% so an approximate number of 80% is fair.

Bill

Anonymous said...

Although there wasn't any breaking news, it was positive and showed the growth potential for ORH. I felt they used 375,000 passenger as our short term goal(5-10 yrs) with potential for higher by 2025. I would of liked to hear what airlines are being pursued but that was not talked about. Linear air name did come up though. I also thought they said todays outbound flight carried our 10,000 enplanement so if I am not mistaken I think we are up to 20,000 passenger this year so far.

Anonymous said...

Although there wasn't any breaking news, it was positive and showed the growth potential for ORH. I felt they used 375,000 passenger as our short term goal(5-10yrs) with potential for higher by 2025. I would of liked to heard what airlines are being pursued but that was not talked about. But, Linear Air's name did come up though. I also thought they said that todays outbound flight carried our 10,000 enplanement so if I am not mistaken we have had 20,000 passenger this year.

Bill Randell said...

tim:

I will try to get a clarification on the passenger numbers. 99% sure that 10,000 represents a total passenger counter whether inbound or outbound. Actually 20,000 passengers would be impossible since the 100th flight will be Monday and the plane (depending on which one) seats either 130 or 150 max.



Also agree that ORH could have 375,000 passengers some day, but in order to get there we need to 1) increase the loads on Allegiant and 2) get another airline preferably an NYC shuttle. Once we do that, then come up with a number 3.

Stating we want 375,000 but without some short-term goals to build community support seems useless to me. Say something like we want to go after VLJ's like Linear, Florida destinations only, NYC shuttle, etc something anything???

Bill

Anonymous said...

Department of Revenue (DOT) defines revenue enplanements as one fare paying passenger boarding an a/c at originating airport. Includes connecting destinations.

Anonymous said...

I hope I am comprehending this correctly. Five years ago we were churning out 375K newspapers per year and now we are churning out MAYBE 20K annually? (10K for a 1/2 year = 20K annually) Where I come from this would be generously called 5% capacity utilization and the B.O.D. and the CEO would be well advised to prepare for an immediate ORH career crash landing. Do not bother to foam the runways as there will be no tommorrow for these folks at ORH.

OK, yes we did have the Sept 11 fallout to deal with and maybe some other issues as well.

And this "factory" which is 100% staffed BTW, is getting rave reviews in media...3 or 4 separate puff pieces in the T&G this week alone? Talk about the lowering of standards. No real news to print, no problemo at all, we'll generate some ORH news!

Is Mr. T & G attempting to show some sort of accomplishment during his former ORH tenure? If I had 37 newspaper presses and only 2 of them were producing, I am CERTAIN the boys from corporate in NYC would be visiting SOON.

Also, on another note, did I read that 12 of 18 airport employees live outside of Worcester? Again, how many employees do we have up there; 11, 12, 15, 18???