March 24, 2012

Direct Air Bankruptcy

Great story in the newspaper regarding yesterday hearing.

All predicted here last week


How could anyone had thought that Direct Air mgmt did not raid the escrow account.   What I do not understand is how aren't public charter airlines required to somehow audit these escrow accounts?  There seems to be no supervision or anyone checking the escorw account books?   It is a god dam free for all and when you are dealing with crooks they wills steal whatever is not nailed down

13 comments:

Jahn said...

Did anyone notice on the T&G page A-7 two bold headlines of two diff. stories started on Page 1?

1/3the way down page A-7 in bold headings across the page ABOUT 4 " apart with a solid line connecting them is the following:


DIRECT AIR ________RECOVERY CENTER


We all know what Direct Air is all about. RECOVERY CENTER IS evidently a piece about the new nut house just built at Plantation & Belmont Sts, a mere re-incarnation of the old Worc State Hospital...and in keeping with Worc State type traditions, henceforth to be dubbed Worc University Hospital

Question, why cant Worc site the PIP Center, the Triage Center, and the (re-born?) MKL Disenfanchised Center over there with the New Cucko Nest? Sure would reduce or eliminate neighborhood oppostion. When flying in from the west, the Umass Med Flight Helicopter can now once again start flying over the New Cucko Nest.

BTW, if I read it right, great to read that DA officials could be held personably libel if they absconded with the escrow? Any lawyer worth his salt that might take this as a class action suit, would surely name Massport as possible defendant. They usually will name anyone & everyone when filing???????

Nick said...

A smart thing would be Massport recruiting United and have them fly Dash-8s to Washington-Dulles and Newark, and E145s to Chicago. This would be fuel efficient with the Dash-8s and would provide a good platform.

Jahn said...

Nick, I am not an airlines industrial engineer, but it seems to me Worcesterites faced with taking a small plane from Worc with a change over at some oterh airport, would be more prone to just grab the direct flight (no pun) to their destination city? This would be especially so with those to the east and to the south of Worcester. I d' like some input on my opinion from others. Bill, Jose', Nick...????

Nick I have done the 50 yd, 100yd. and 440 yd Dashes? what is a Dash 8? Is a Dash Ate like a Dine & Dash or a Chew & Screw like my pals and I once did at the Charlton East bound Howard Johnsons when some turnpike worker once left the rear gate to Rte 20 wide open. Also beat the $.20toll from Sturb. to Awbern :)

Nick said...

Jahn,

I agree that people don't prefer change overs, but flights to Newark, Dulles, and Chicago would provide access to most of the world.

Andy Davis also said,

"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."

Flights to hubs would provide what Massport wants, and what I personally would want. I would much rather fly out of ORH and connect in New York and go to my destination over flying out of ORH.

Also the Dash 8 is a twin turboprop that is a high wing aircraft, it comes in three variants, the Dash 8-200 (seats 32), -300 (seats 50), and -400 (seats 62). These would probably be the most fuel efficent aircraft to fly to Newark and Washington.

I would think United would be perfect for flights to Newark, Washington-Dulles, and Chicago since all three are hubs in the United network.

Bill Randell said...

JetBlue Embraer to Ney York to connect would be out best bet

Jose said...

Jahn: is it not true that airlines make more money if they make people change planes at a hub i.e. jetblue to ny before to your destination? im not sure about that.

Nick:united express does have dash-8's in their fleets, and do fly to newark, dulles, and other routes to florida. problem is they already fly out of hartford, logan, and manchester.

i think we all can agree that direct air proved that there is a market for passenger flight out of orh. people in central mass do want to get away for the weekend. it seems like that business is picking up in worcester with all the sports, medical, education, and downtown face lift, even the movie industry recently.

i still think the best thing to do is to bring in a carrier for weekend flights fri-mon.

Frequent Flier said...

The beauty of Direct Air was non-stop flights to warm destinations. If I have to connect for a 1.5 hr flight, I would drive the extra 30 mins to Boston to fly direct. It's dissapointing that MassPort is marketing the 3 worst carriers out there and ignoring the plees from the customers who fly out of that airport. I'll drive 45 mins to BDL & connect on Jet Blue or Southwest before I fly any of the carriers named out of ORH. There are a large population of DA fliers that own second homes in SC & FL, I have spoken with and know of at least 50. I'm
not going to drive 2 hrs to an airport to take 7 hrs with connections to go to my weekend home. Time to sign up for the $9.00 club on Spirit again. What a dissapointment.

Anonymous said...

Bill...agreed...Jet Blue Embraer would be perfect....

Jahn... US Air used to fly Dash8's from WOO to Philly back in the early 1990's ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Dash_8

Embraer 190...which Bill mentioned...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_family

Harry T
Worcester,MA

Nick said...

I know JetBlue is wanted, but apparantly Massport doesn't have them at the front of their list. United and American are...

I would, along with many, suck it up and take a connection if it meant flying out of Worcester. This would lay the ground for another airline (like JetBlue) to come in after some success, and fly to nonstop destinations in Florida.

Frankly Southwest would be the best option.. low fares, good times, good fit. I understand that they fly from MHT, BDL, and BDL (with a small # of flights out of BOS). Same with United they wouldn't take too many customers from those airports...

This airport needs to make baby steps in order to accomplish what all of you are hoping for... and I believe that service to hubs is the first step.

Anonymous said...

Agree with Frequent Flyer. Own a place in the Tampa area and I do not want to waste time with connections. If Worcester had a direct flight to Tampa, I'd pay an extra $50 to take it versus direct flights on Southwest. When I go down for long weekends, I usually leave Thursday night and return Monday morning, always direct.

Anonymous said...

what massport needs to do is make upgrades to the navigation system like jetblue said they would take to get them to fly out of orh.

Nick said...

I've been tweeting back and forth with CEO of JetBlue, Dave Barger, and he said improved nav aides..

What would these navigation improvements be?

Jahn said...

Navigation improvments at the airport or navigation improvemetns to get to the airport?

Which should come first, the chicken or the egg. Nav. imp's or Jet Blue?

If Nav. imp. are made at the airport, will Jet Blue post a performance bond that they will perform and if so how many flights per period for how long?

How about one of our so called Community Dev'ment Corporations start a non profit booking agency for Worc Airport flights. Afterall, these CDC's do other things besides build 1/2 million $$$$$$ low income apts. They teach ESL, computer skills, condumology, and the like so why not a travel booking agency. I mean that"s all that DA was....right?......just a booking agency that unfortunately ended up being a crooked bookie.

If the CDC's wont do, maybe Lew cant get a couple of his guests who arent all that bad of character(s) to do it..........like drunken drivers or the local neighborhood pot dealer or the local neighborhood bookie who are currently incarcerated up there. If they can paint neighborhood schools, why cant they start an airline booking agency? All ya prob. need are a couple telephone lines, a comptuer, and 3 desks. I mean talk about no lo start up costs. Plus the inmates get to talk with women travelers, too :)

If the CDC's or Lew wont do it, how about colleges do it as a Pilot Payment. Bill ya got any empty space ya wanna giveaway for a 6 months start up period :). If succesful ya might have a long time tenant with littel to no automobile or foot traffic. Mostly just telephone traffic?

I am serious here. DA was just a sales agency filling up planes.