June 14, 2011

Direct Air

Letter to the editor, here is the link in the Telegram.   I know the airport liaison and others will not like me saying this, but I am not surprised to read this.  I have gotten many e-mails and calls saying the same thing.  The other big complaint nobody ever answers their toll free customer service number.

I really expected other carriers to be here by now once MassPort took over.    Very disappointed.    July 1st marks one full year under their ownership and they have not brought in one commercial flight?

9 comments:

Jahn posts too much said...

Worcester missed its opportunity to become a relevant airport. There are 4 major airports operating in the region(Boston, Providence, Manchester and Hartford) and there is no need for another. Worcester's shot was to develop ahead of Providence and Manchester but that did not happen. So Worcester residents should give up their dream of having decent commercial air service at the airport. No airline desires to come here and Worcester's own residents aren't demanding air service, most of the residents are content with travelling to another airport in the area.

Serial Poster said...

I aint posted since last Friday or was it Saturday.

Folks Massport has been in charge for a year at the airport. Have we really seen any appreciable change up there? Now maybe a year aint quite enuff time to turn this place around?

So how much more time are we goign to give MaSSPORt until we declare their tutelage a failure?

Is the airport under Massport doomed to become another Worcester failure not unlike Worc. Center Mall, Worc Common, Medical City, or the soon to be City Square.

David Z. said...

I hope your wrong on this one Jahn.

Steve Foley said...

As I've stated before, Massport only took over to prevent the possibility of ORH closing. Prior to 9/11, airlines were on track to surpass runway capacity. Nobody's building airports anymore, so Massport simply grabbed ORH to hold on to it until it's needed.

There's really no point in Massport diverting any air traffic to ORH. They know it's coming eventually.

It's too bad that ORH doesn't have a top shelf airline, but at least there's air service. When the planes are on time, nobody knows there's nobody answering the phones.

David Z. said...

Serial Poster said, "Is the airport under Massport doomed to become another Worcester failure not unlike Worc. Center Mall, Worc Common, Medical City, or the soon to be City Square."

I strongly disagree with your thinking on this one. How can you say the Worcester Center Mall, Worcester Common, Medical City (which by the way is no longer the name and hasn't been for quite awhile), and CitySquare are failures.

In it's day, the Worcester Center Galleria was quite successful. In fact I believe that without the Mall most of the major retailers would have left much sooner from downtown for the suburban strip malls. I can recall the buses being filled to capacity with SRO coming in from the surrounding towns back in the heyday of the Galleria. They were for the most part getting off the buses for the Mall. Once the suburban malls and shopping centers were built, it made the Galleria obsolete just like every other city center around the country found out that had similar projects. If you've visited Providence lately, the Mall has pretty much sucked dry their former retail center and I hear their sales per square foot are trending down and that was before the recession. Just like Worcester, Hartford and Springfield found out, I believe that the clock is already ticking on the Providence Place Mall.

Except for the skating rink not coming on-line as fast as I would have liked, the common is looking better than ever. The city and other local organizations are bringing lots of activity to the common that was previously very under utilized. We have a summer movie series debuting this year on the common and the lunch time Friday concert series starts July 1st and runs every Friday through September. Guess what, this is actually bringing what we all want downtown, people!!! With the Mayo group housing on the Franklin, Portland, and Salem Street side of the common and the rumored market rate housing coming in the next phase of CitySquare, I predict the common will be even more popular.

The St. Vincent Hospital complex is a far better use for that property than what used to be there. IIRC, it was aging businesses and gravel parking lots for the Centrum (pre DCU days). Now you have a state of the art medical complex and the soon to be built Cancer Center in CitySquare. The St. Vincent Hospital decision to stay in Worcester and move downtown also led to the birth of the MCPHS Worcester campus which now stretches over several city blocks. I love seeing the students in their white coats walking between the rapidly expanding MCPHS footprint downtown.

And lastly, how can you say CitySquare is doomed to failure when the first building hasn't even been constructed. Talk about Worcester pessimism in all it's "shining glory". Let me enlighten you and try to bring some optimism into your soul. The UNUM building will break ground by late summer with an expected opening date in Fall 2012. The Cancer Center building will break ground soon after that for a January 2013 occupancy. These two major tenants has given rise to interest from a Hotel developer and market rate housing being built sooner rather than later. And with the CSX project on-line for a 2012 opening of the expanded freight yard, more commuter trains will then help to fill the market rate transit orientated housing which in turn will fuel the demand for retail and service businesses downtown.

I'm more bullish than ever about Worcester and that is why I'm leaving the burbs to return to the city.

tim macdonald said...

I would like to see an airline start regular service. Us Air, United, JetBlue, anyone with 4 daily flights to a hub so you can go anywhere in the country. I have flown DirectAir and enjoyed their service but I would like more options for travel.

Jahn said...

Well stated, David. Let's hope it all comes to pass.

I am reasonably certain I could go back to 1968 and read similar stories about the coming Worc Center Mall or back to 1979 and read similar stories about the Centrum or back to 1994 and read similar stories about Medical City.

My position still remains that erecting new structures does nothing to change Worc's underlying problems. New school buildings do not an educated populace make. New office buildings will not turn around an ailing central business district. Market rate housing....maybe.

Call me Broken Record Jahn or Cereal Poster Jahn. Worc needs more than a bowl of Wheaties to cure its ills.

So what's going in over at the Kelly Sq site of the former General Automotive. I hear there's gov't money involved in some or all of that demo job.

Anonymous said...

I have flown them in the past using the vouchers. It worked great. Long wait on the phone though to book them. However they did tell me that they limit the amount of voucher-seats per flight, so don't try to use them around holidays or school vacations. Other airlines have similar policies with reward point seats. I have also had them cancel a flight that I was supposed to take but I received a phone call 3 weeks in advanced. I loved the ease of the airport and cheapness and flexibility of the vouchers.

Sharon said...

Flew them from Worcester to Sanford and was delayed 1 1/2hrs and then coming home made us wait 9 hours and then told us that there would be no flight till the next day..The Direct air personnel all ran for the doors when they knew there wasn't going to be a flight which was when they checked our baggage in with fake baggage tags..Worst airline i have every flew on will never use them again