October 05, 2006

New Regional Air Study Plan

I want to thank Bob Z for telling us that the final report is on the New England Regional Air Study Plan website and I look forward to his updates on IMG's progress recruiting commercial service to ORH:

http://www.nerasp.com/NERASP_Final_Report_Web_Version

I just flipped through it .. I love the table that shows the ORH leakage at 100%--thanks for reminding us.. I really did not learn one thing about ORH. It is easy to forecast that ORH will have between 275,000 to 550,000 passengers by the year 2020 and I do not debate that we could do that, but the question is how???? The answer is not in here, maybe it will be in the Master Plan--kiddin. My favorite line, however, is on page 34... A 10% reduction of time from Route 290 to ORH would increase passengers by 39%. Not 40% or 33.33%, but 39%.

SAT question:
If an airport has no passengers, but was able to increase passenger count by 39%, how many passengers would that airport have???

a) 39

b) 275,000

c) 550,000

d) 0

e) none of the above


We can turn this airport around and I truly believe that we could have 500,000 passengers by the year 2020. How do we get from 0 to 500,000 over the next 15 years??? There are no "magic" answers in this report or will there be in any other report. The truth is that there is no substitute for hard work and a management team that is held accountable, but until that happens nothing will change. Lets hope MassPort either outright buys or leases ORH for 99 years.

If you are from the private sector the answer above was the letter D)... If you are not from the private sector, then any other answer is right except D).

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Andi Esposito column in today's Worcester T&G business section Thursday 10/5/06 regarding the airports future .

Anonymous said...

BIll, what is leakage? Drop in passenger volume or rain coming throught the roof??

I.e. because Allegiant pulled out we lost 100% of passenger load?

So if we still had Allegiant and Allegiant was doing an assumed 400 (or would it be 800 both inbound & outbound?) passengers per week....that comes to about 21,000 per year.........so........21,000 x 39% increase by 2020......still only comes to say 30,000 passengers per year...........and yet the report says 200,000 + by 2020???

What am i missing here? Do they mean a 39% increase per year??

Bill Randell said...

Guess my point in all of this is that we need to worry about 2005 and 2007, before we think about 2020...

Anonymous said...

Well said Bill:

Anonymous said...

Bill, has everyone noticed that Mr. Nemeth is quoted in Andi Esposito's article saying that Massport should be approached to pick up ownership of the airport? I think that's a clear indication that he sees the merit in your long-standing suggestion for the city to get out from under this onerous financial burden.

Bill Randell said...

Our only hope to make it to 2020 and potentially see the forecasts in the NERASP is for MassPort to take over ORH. Either through outright ownership or 99 year lease...