May 29, 2008

49 Cities Losing Scheduled Service

Story below in today's paper or click here, thanks Dave Zimage. Sorry, but we blew it with Allegiant. In the story 49 cities are losing scheduled service!!! Lets face it, we have no chance of getting commercial service in the short term. We need to stop being Part 139 certified, downgrade to General Aviation and put the airport up for sale. I forwarded the information that Avports requested to our Airport Liaison, but have not heard anything back.



Here is the story:

Air service is facing cutbacks

As Delta Air Lines Inc. and US Airways Group Inc. drop flights to trim record fuel bills, passengers in regional business centers such as Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are being hit hardest. Pittsburgh, home to 12 Fortune 1000 companies, lost nonstop service to London, Paris, Frankfurt and 19 U.S. cities when US Airways scrapped a third of flights at its former hub this year.

Delta’s Comair cut back by 10 percent in Cincinnati, the headquarters of Procter & Gamble Co. The result is a scramble by corporate fliers who used to take connections for granted. Airports in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are among 120 where airlines reduced seating capacity at least 10 percent in the past year, and more cuts are likely with the cost of jet fuel up 83 percent in 12 months.

Regional business centers are feeling the pain most as airlines abandon routes, shift to smaller planes and fly less frequently. Forty-nine cities are losing scheduled service entirely. This includes three state capitals — Trenton, N.J.; Topeka, Kan., and Santa Fe, N.M. From wire service reports

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cape Air - Cape Air - Cape Air.

It costs $145 one way to get a limo from Worcester to Logan. Almost $300 total. Cape Air is around $100 for most of their flights, $200 or less round trip.

Worcester to Logan, Providence, Vermont, The Cape, and a code share with JetBlue. This is what we should be shooting for. This is the best possible option for our city. These are the guys that our city needs to court.

Not only are they the largest regional airline in the US but they are also PROFITABLE.

Wake up and smell the Cessna 402's!

Anonymous said...

$145 gets you the whole limo, not just one seat.

Maybe Cape Air doesn't fly to ORH because they want to remain profitable.

Bill Randell said...

Anonymous:

I have actually said Cape Air numerous times. Although the have a similar arrangement with Hyannis, P-Town, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket to fly to Boston multiple flights per day with their JetBlue code sharing agreement, they will not come to ORH even though we have $300,000 of DOT grant monies that we need to spend by September.

In fact I met with the City Manager about one year ago and express to him that we need to put a full court press on Cape Air. Why will they not come to ORH?

I have no idea. For the record it would be full all day long and would be quite profitable for Cape Air especially if we used the $300,000 of grant monies.

Bill

John said...

Wow. Just looking at their route maps on the website you would think Worcester would be a great opportunity. My parents live about 2 miles from the airport in Hyannis & if there were flights from Worcester I would probably use the service at least once a month & ditto for my parents coming off the Cape.

Anonymous said...

******* BREAKING NEWS !!!! ********

Paulie "Poison pen" Collyer is interviewed in Worcester Magazine!!!

http://www.worcestermagazine.com/content/view/2806/

Go Paulie !!!!

Harry Tembenis
Worcester, MA

Bill Randell said...

bad enough I can not read the paper or listen to the radio without finding Tembenis and now I can not even pick up WOMAG

Anonymous said...

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Paulie !!!!!!


The battle for Chandler Street
Written by Chet Williamson
Thursday, 29 May 2008
The fight is on to improve the neighborhood and deal with crime

By Chet Williamson

Paul Collyer has been in the neighborhood for 17 years. You want to know what's going on around Chandler Street — he's the guy to call. Collyer not only resides there and runs his business out of the area, he's one of the district's biggest fans — he even blogs about it. He is easily one of the area's most active citizens — just don't call him an activist.

"I hate to be called that," he says. "I'm just a guy who lives here and wants to be part of the neighborhood."

For Collyer, who has also lived in Somerville, Cambridge and Charlestown and has seen his share of gentrification, says Worcester's Chandler Street is ready for such big-city urban renewal and would, in fact, welcome it.

"I think that we have one of the best opportunities for gentrification," he says. "I know that is a scary word in this city, but there has to be some of it in this urban environment if it is going to change. I saw how Somerville went from a tough-scrapple city; people used to call it "Slumerville." These towns can change, but a lot of it has to do with the behavior of the people living in them."

New storefronts on Chandler Street.
While Collyer raves about the good stuff, he pulls no punches when talking about the bad on the street. His controversial comments, featuring an array of topics from race and politics to crime, can be found at: www.pauliespointofview.blogspot.com/

What the neighborhood also has going for it and the thing that has kept it from becoming an attractive place to live is one of the highest crime rates in the city.

"The reason people aren't moving into the urban core is because they don't feel safe," Collyer says. "They don't like the grime and crime. Until we correct that we are not going to change. There are a lot of other urban communities out there that get it. This city has been reluctant to deal with it."

Collyer is a member of the Chandler Street Business Association (CSBA). In an attempt to "deal with it," the group has been meeting on a regular basis and crime is at the top of their agenda.

At the group's last meeting in May, City Councilor Barbara Haller was in attendance to discuss what Collyer called "a current state of violence in the area, including at some area businesses."

Haller walked away from the meeting saying she would be calling Chief Gary Gemme of the Worcester Police Department, asking him to attend the next meeting. Collyer says, "We hope to have a Q&A with the chief and to also find out what we can do to assist. The issue of having security cameras in certain hotspots will be discussed."

The Chandler Street corridor between Park Avenue and Main Street has been declared a Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area (NRSA) and, as Haller points out, federal money has passed through the city to be used for such corridors to stimulate economic development.

"In the case of the Chandler Street Business Association, Worcester Common Ground is the fiscal agent for the effort," Haller says. "They've done things like tree plantings and getting the street swept more often and they've worked on side improvements. Go by Suney's Pub and see their new façade. That was part of the NRSA effort."

NRSA is a program funded by the city of Worcester designed to provide business owners or homeowners within a specific target area with access to funds for façade and home improvements. Haller says that there is some flexibility within each corridor as to how that money gets used.

"One of the ideas that they would like to explore is security cameras in strategic locations along that corridor that would be accessible by the police," Haller says. "At what level can NRSA money be used to help support the effort? I don't know. At this point we are exploring it. If CSBA can use it as a pilot as part of their NRSA status in the city, then I say, ‘Hooray.' It gives it a status that would be helpful."

Laurel Ciprari is vice president of the Park Avenue branch of TDBanknorth. She is also the president of the CSBA.

"Our question is, can some [of the NRSA] grant money be used for surveillance cameras?" she asks. "We were told we could use it, but the fact is, who is going to monitor it?

"We know it works when they move the cameras around the city for illegal trash dumping. It did have an impact. So now we have to see if it is going to work for us. That's our big question."

The next CSBA meeting is at 9 a.m., June 11, at the Sano Café, located inside The Living Earth at 232 Chandler St.




Harry Tembenis
Worcester, MA

Anonymous said...

Bill:

True, true ... my latest rant was in the T&G last week...


http://www.telegram.com/article/20080520/NEWS/805200635

Although I asked the T&G to print a correction as the article sounds like it is a fundraiser to pay my medical bills when in essence we are receiving z-e-r-o from this. The money raised will go to charity...

http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/eliaswalk/

I asked the T&G to print a correction but haven't seen one yet.

Harry Tembenis
Worcester, MA