Sale of ORH

For four years, we have called for the privatization of ORH by either outright sale or long-term lease. The City of Worcester has proven that it does not belong in the airport business and the tax-payers simply can not afford to cover a $2,000,000 loss between the debt service and operating loss. Albeit a large portion of this has been and is being covered by MassPort.

We sited many examples of the years, but my favorite is Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York, which was floundering similar to ORH. In 1999, there was a 99-year lease agreement executed between the Governor of New York with National Express Group to operate Stewart International Airport. National Express Group, through its wholly-owned subsidiary SWF Airport Acquisition Inc., will lease Stewart International Airport from the State Department of Transportation. The lease entails initial payments totaling $35 million, plus 5 percent of gross income on the earlier of the lease's 10th anniversary or after traffic exceeds 1.38 million passengers.

Guess what happened? National Express completed turned the airport around and the Port Authority of New York, who needed more space anyhow, finally saw the potential here and bought National Express out of their lease. Although National Expresss spent $35 million up front and subsequently invested about $16 million of its own money and about $24 million of other people's money -- primarily grants from the Federal Aviation Administration -- in the airport. How much do you think they made in a profit in less then ten years?

National Express made a profit of 24,000,000!!!! Click here for a story. Maybe someone should give National Express a call? I myself have called Avports, another great airport management company, who said they would be interested, but although I passed this on to the City of Worcester. Nobody has invited him to Worcester?

As Harry has mentioned many times, why not invite Virgin, who is flying out of Worcester, to come. Who knows what Richard Branson may think? Better yet I would invite the authorities that own TF Green, Bradley and Manchester to Worcester. Although I am happy to read about the sale of ORH in the latest legislation in either the House or Senate, it really concerns me that there is no mention of the price in any of this legislation? Last Sunday I even urged the City of Worcester, in the very least, to get an airport appraisal.

In closing privatizing ORH is great news for the tax-payers of Worcester's bottom line, but not getting the fair market value of a great asset that has just been run horribly does not make sense to me.