March 20, 2012

Councilor Germain & Vision

I would like to give credit to Councilor Germain for at least birnging up the Vision idea, although I did not like it.  At least he realizes the importance of a viable airport and is trying to come up with some ideas.  Telegram story in newspaper about it.

What I found most interesting was Airport Direct Davis quote "Massport plans to market to "legacy carriers" such as American, United and Continental and try to bring back regualry scheduled flights to hub airports in NY, Washinigton and Chicago if possible.

Okay we would want that over anything else, but here are my concerns. 

  1. "plan to"?    You mean you have not been doing this?
  2. JetBlue conspicuously absent?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

JetBlue CEO commented on twitter about ORH a month or so back. He said they needed to upgrade the NAV and access road before it would be a seriously considered. They are going to be flying out of PVD next.

jose said...

http://business-news.thestreet.com/milforddailynews/story/3-horrible-facts-about-the-airline-industry/11461489

here is a article about the airline industry. maybe its not worcester airport or even massport fault.

Jahn said...

Bill, please come on ! Germaine is just hopping onto the latest bandwagon in Worc that will get him some attention and is politically easy, i.e. who can be against a CC trying to help people get their refunds or promoting the airport. Question is however where has he and other CC'ors been the last 21 months whhile mAssport has done nothing to get add'l comm air carriers to Worc? Dittos for Tim, too.

Anon, we all agree the airport needs an access road, but in this economy it isnt happening (if at all?) anytime soon and if & when it does happen look for the likes of a Germaine to come out railing against it. This begs the question why do they continue to put more and more airport improvements in place when the access road ,a foundation for a viable airport is no where to befound? "Free" stimulus $$$$$$?

So last night (Monday) Tim Ernhart is on Levy espousing his views about Worc's future, the airport, and City Sq. I will tell you he sounded flustered, weak, and disorganized in his delivery. He is what i heard over & over & over again last night:

collaboration
time is now for Worc
leveraging
Harnessing
transportaion summit(s)
transportaion systems
private investemnt
step up to the plate
change for a new beginning
leadership
momentum
grow the pie

I mean talk about SSDD and complete lack of any substance except he did say:

Within 1 year Worc will have two times the number of commuter trains. Well i am from worc and I am also from Missouri. I predict this will not happen and I have an autographed double saw buck that says it will not happen. "Punk, you gotta ask yourself if you're feelin' lucky today..." and wanna win a double saw buck :)

Steve Foley said...

Gotta love the poll on telegram.com

"Should Worcester Regional Airport give up on passenger flights and focus on cargo only?"

What they don't realize is that if you pay for air freight, and it's late, you don't pay the bill. There's no way any cargo carriers would consider ORH. Even Worcester County Air Freight, who is based at the Worcester Airport, trucks the freight into Boston.

Anonymous said...

I'll throw out a crazy idea because nothing else has worked yet and a 10-15 yearwait is not practical. Instead of an access road, have a remote passenger/freight terminal near the highway with a dedicated rail link to the airport. A rail link would encounter lower resistance than an access road, could be built quicker, and could revitalize an area of the city.

Southbridge Street near the Port of Worcester would be a good location. Near routes 146 and 290, and underutilized.

Nick said...

Anonymous,

That actually would most likely solve a need for an access road without one. They could build a parking lot near there, have a nice little shuttle (like the ones that go terminal to terminal at JFK and TPA). Smart idea, no big construction... Definetly thinking out of the box, I like it!

jahn said...

Anon, hOw much time are we talking about here by the time passengers load their baggage on a train, take their seat(s), and the train accelerates toward the airport and then decelerates once at the airport. Couldnt they have just as easily driven from say Camb & SouthBrdg Sts to the airport and unload their baggage right at the terminal front door?

Plus trains cannot climb steep hills, so unless a graduated trestle starts at the Port of Worc and gradually rises up from there to the airport.....If I am understanding you correctly, youre going to have 150 ft high trestle in the Mill St area approaching airport Hill?

I will say that one positive feature of such a plan is that RR's can take property by eminent domain, so the ROAR crowd would be left pounding sand when they tried to stop it. Their only hope would be an EIR issued by the EPA barring its construction becuz those EPA Mofo's can stop a speeding train dead in its tracks.

Anonymous said...

The access road wasn't needed for Tom Hanks and numerous movie crews recently. Somehow they found the airport, in bad weather no less.

What has been shown currently is the same as historically; mismanagement by Airport Commissioners continued to transcend with Massport.

While politicians hope to enjoy "political absolution" from their constituent's wrath in the next round of access road demands, both Direct Air and commuter train fiasco show the city's lack of effectual leadership nor any BASIC research done. A blog suggesting kudos for "Vision"; leads us to wonder, who'd ever suggest Direct Air's subcontracted sister-airline, already having cash flow issues as a replacement? Where's the research?
Especially, since the facts as so well known. The apparent lack of vetting Vision Airlines fiscal solvency shows all how inept those suggesting it are.