1st Qtr Passenger Count

The 1st qtr has ended and we should know what the passenger count was from Jan 1st thru March 31st. First, it is simply good to know how we are doing with Allegiant. Second, we need to get 10,000 passengers this year to keep getting $1,000,000 from the FAA.

I will e-mail, and mail letters to our airport liaison asking for this information.

Allegiant Jet

Today I was driving down Park Ave at 10:00AM and saw the Allegiant jet driving over. If you have never seen the Jet coming in, it is pretty impressive.

Bill

Small Community Air Service Grant

I believe that the deadline for this year's grant (potentially the last year it may be around).. Although I have asked numerous times, if we would be applying, I am guessing that we are not. Two years back we were successful and received a grant fro $455,000 but have only submitted expenses of $40,000 to be reimbursed.

Maybe it would be tough to get another grant application approved when we have been slow in utilizing the $455,000 grant that we already have.???

PanAm Expands at Hanscom

BEDFORD -- For some time, commercial aviation at Hanscom Field has taken a back seat to corporate jet activity. But big changes are afoot as Boston-Maine Airways prepares to launch service to the Washington, D.C., area in mid-May and to Pittsburgh by the end of June.
Portsmouth, N.H.-based Boston-Maine has been serving Trenton, N.J., from the Bedford airport since March 2004. It offers five round trips a day, five days a week.

...


The airline has not yet firmed up specific flight plans for Pittsburgh, but it will offer service to that city's airport from Hanscom as well as from Portsmouth and Trenton, Fink said.
With FAA approval, he said, Boston-Maine will have three round trips a day, Monday through Friday, between Bedford and Dulles. One-way fares likely will range from $90 to $135, depending on the time of departure, he said

Manchester Name Change

part of a story:


Craig P. Coy, chief executive of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan, has asked authority lawyers to see whether Massport would have any legal standing to oppose Manchester adding Boston to its name.

Notably, however, Massport has over the years seriously considered renaming the Worcester Regional Airport, which it runs under contract with that city, Worcester-Boston Regional to help promote service there. The last major airline offering regular service at Worcester, US Airways Express, left Worcester in February 2003, and currently Worcester has just flights to Orlando on Allegiant Air.

Allegiant Increases Stewart Flight

Eight flights per week!!!


From June 25 through September 2, Allegiant Air is going to double its flights from Stewart Airport at Newburgh to Orlando. The airline announced Friday that it will operate two flights daily Sundays through Thursday.

“Since they started their serve in October 2005, Allegiant Air’s flights have consistently been on time and service has been great,” said airport Marketing Manager Tanya Vanasse.
Allegiant Air flies to Orland Sanford International Airport and will offer one-way fare of $79.
Last week, airline spokeswoman Tyri Squyres said they are exploring other cities to serve from Stewart in the future.

Allegiant's 2nd Florida Destination

There was mention of it in WoMag's Worcesteria this week and I saw the article below today.. I will tell you right now, Allegiant's 2nd Florida destination will be St Pete's!!! Who wants to bet me ???



Allegiant Air doubles Florida flights from Stewart

From June 25 through September 2, Allegiant Air is going to double its flights from Stewart Airport at Newburgh to Orlando. The airline announced Friday that it will operate two flights daily Sundays through Thursday.

“Since they started their serve in October 2005, Allegiant Air’s flights have consistently been on time and service has been great,” said airport Marketing Manager Tanya Vanasse.
Allegiant Air flies to Orland Sanford International Airport and will offer one-way fare of $79.

Last week, airline spokeswoman Tyri Squyres said they are exploring other cities to serve from Stewart in the future.

Local Airport Sold

See it is not so far-fetched when I say sell ORH!!



Eagle Leasing buys Oxford AirportOXFORD -- The Eagle Leasing Co. (www.eagleleasing.com) of Massachusetts and Connecticut has purchased approximately 24 acres of land known as the Oxford Airport for $750,000 from Astro Wings Inc. and Oxford Airport Inc. Eagle Leasing, which specializes in leasing storage, road and office trailers as well as ground level storage containers throughout the Northeast, plans to use the site for storage and distribution purposes. The property was most recently used for non-commercial flights and the airport was decommissioned in October of 2005. William Kelleher, vice president, and Matthew Mayrand, associate broker, of Kelleher & Sadowsky Associates Inc. of Worcester, brokered the sale.

JetBlue Ad

There were at least two large ads on the back front of the front section of the Telegram today. I know that this may be part of a package deal with the Boston Globe, who owns the T & G, but anyway you look at it JetBlue is spending alot of monies advertising in the Worcester catchment area. Still believe diverting two JFK shuttles to ORH of the ten from out of Boston makes sense for all parties.

Putting that arguement aside, I wish someone would at least customize the ad for Worcester. The ad shows a Riverside MBTA subway. Maybe a train leaving Union Station would be more appropriate for the Worcester Telegram.

Allegiant Air Drops Oklahoma City

If the numbers are not there, Allegiant will drop you:



Discount Airline Makes Final Flight From Oklahoma CityApr 04, 2006

A discount airline is pulling out of the Oklahoma City market. Allegiant Air made its last flight out of Will Rogers World Airport today. It's citing rising fuel prices and lack of passengers for its decision.

The Las Vegas-based carrier first flew out of Oklahoma City in October 2004 and at its peak had 2,570 passengers a month on its one-way flights to Las Vegas. But a spokeswoman for the airline says its passenger numbers in Oklahoma City were consistently at the bottom of its system.

DOT Monies

Small Community Air Service Grant was awarded in the amount of 442,615 to help ORH attract air service. Although there is a lag time between what has been spent and what has been reported to the DOT for reimbursement, I am a little disappointed to see that 39,375.51 of the 43,449.26 submitted for reimbursement were monies spent on a consultant.

Between the New England Regional Air Study Plan, the $100,000 IMG Study and the 20 Year Master Plan, not to mention our partner MassPort and the management in place at ORH, one would not think that we would need to spend another 39,375 on a consultant to help us attract service. These monies would be better spent on an actual carrier to attract them to ORH.

It was mentioned before that we had to spend the monies, since it was in the original application, but free parking was also in the original application and we did not do that. Lets just hope the remaining DOT grant monies actually go to airlines to attract air service versus consultant services.

Manchester to Add Boston to Name?

That's right Manchester is thinking of adding Boston to its name..


MANCHESTER, N.H. --The director of Manchester Airport says he's considering recommending the airport's name be changed to make sure distant travelers know it's close to Boston.

Kevin Dillon said Manchester-Boston Regional Airport is one possibility.
The airport bills itself as a no-hassle alternative to Boston's Logan International Airport, and Dillon said he wants to make sure distant travelers who might not know New England's geography understand the airport is close to Boston.

Information from Airport Liaison

Today I received information in regards to my requests. Here is a summary. If anyone wants to see any of the actual information, let me know and I will fax it to you.

1) Income Statement for Six Months of this Fiscal Year

I was told to ask City Auditor DelSignore. I will do that.

2) Monthly Parking Reports From LAZ Parking

I only received the revenues received, not the monthly reports from LAZ. I will request the actual reports, to see the actual net income that the City of Worcester is deriving from the parking lots. In the meantime here are the revenues

Dec-5 $2,350 (5 flights)
Jan-6 $3,770 (10 flights)
Feb-6 $7,715 (15 flights)
March-6 $3,311 (5 flights)

$17,146 Total Revenues Collected

3) DOT monies

Reimbursement requests from the DOT can only be submitted after the City of Worcester has received a bill from the underlying vendor, processed them, sent the check and received the cancelled check back. In other words there is a lag thus the report below does not include the $50,000 inaugural campaign for Allegiant. Keeping that in mind, here is how the DOT grant monies have been spent to date:

consultant (recruiting airlines) $39,375.51
marketing (poster) $740.00
marketing (fliers) $920.00
marketing (radio ad) $1,500.00
marketing (event) $726.75
marketing (event) $75.00
marketing (event) $112.00

Total $43,449.26
We get reimbursed at a level of 72.73%
Estimated Reimbursement $31,600.65


Since the total grant was $442,615 less the $31,600.65, it looks like we have $411,014 remaining (not counting the Allegiant campaign). Lastly I have e-mailed this blog to our airport liaison to make sure that all the information above is correct.

20 Year Master Plan

One of the reasons cited for a delay in progress on the Master Plan was the need for information from the New England Regional Air Study Plan. Marc Champigny of Louis Berger, company doing the study, sent me the following e-mail... Looks like we are ready to proceed.


Mr. Randell, The NERASP project has delivered the base forecasts and detailed descriptions of passenger demand to all of the study airports, including Worcester. This was the essential data that the Worcester Master Plan wanted to include in its analysis of its future needs. There are additional analysis being performed to test the effect of changes in access or airline behavior on the ultmate size of Worcester's market in a long term time fame. While this information will not be available for another four to six weeks, it is not an impediment to continuing progress on Worcester's master plan. This was the concensus of the recent Technical Advisory Committee on March 30, 2006. Thank you for your inquiry.

MassPort Top 3 Destinations

Page 91 of below referenced MassPort financials fiscal year ending 6/30/4. Top 3 destinations:

1. New York/Newark 10.40%
2. Florida South 5.60%
3. DC 5.30%

Again, very interesting report. The size of MassPort amazes me. Fiscal year operting income for fiscal 2004 was $415,000,000.

MassPort Financials

I just went on-line and found their financials for fiscal year ending 6/30/4:

http://www.massport.com/about/pdf/c_fy04_cafr.pdf


The size of the agency is incredible. Two notes on ORH in there:

Page 5: "Legislation action would be required for the Authority to take title." I say lets get it started.

Page 106: "All payments made under the Worcester Operating Agreement have been made from cash from the Improvement and Extension fund." Improvement and extension sounds like the eventual extention for MassPort to take over ORH.

The more and more I think of it, we need to sell ORH to MassPort...

Naming Rights

One of our original ideas was to sell naming rights to the airport or, in the very least the terminal. Imagine selling the ability to rename the airport to whoever buys it? Sound far-fetched, check out: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05319/606553.stm

Here is a portion:


Ladiese and gentlemen, welcome to Pittsburgh-Heinz International Airport.
Sound strange? It is. No international airport in the country has adopted a corporate name.
Allegheny County Councilman Ed Kress wants Pittsburgh to be the first. He's introducing a bill at tonight's council meeting that calls on the county to sell the airport's name to the highest bidder, starting at no less than $5 million annually over a 10-year period.

"It's a great advertising location," said Mr. Kress, R-Shaler. He may be right. About 14 million people use the airport year, according to JoAnn Jenny, a spokeswoman for the Allegheny County Airport Authority.

JetBlue Airport has a nice ring, doesn't it??

Sell ORH

That's right sell ORH... As one of the biggest fans of ORH, I have always seen and still see the untapped potential in ORH. Over the past two years trying to deal with the current management structure, I have come to realize the City of Worcester has no business being in the airport management business. This is pretty common practice in the City of Worcester, as exemplified by DCU Center or Convention Center, where professional management companies run the day to day operations.. Same goes for Union Station now.

It would be very difficult to get a management company, however, to take over ORH, unless we offered a long-term deal (99 years) like they did at Stewart Airport in upstate New York. Although I still believe that an RFP should have been put out 21 months ago, we are running out of time; for example, we can not put out an RFP for a restaurant slot, imagine how long an RFP to run the airport would take?

What options are left?? There are two-CLOSE ORH or SELL ORH. Sorry Charley Farely, first we are not sure hot the FAA will treat past grants, to determine how much that we would owe if we closed, and and secondly I still believe in the potential of a successful ORH. All of this has lead me to believe, we need to SELL ORH.

Whats the point of getting MassPort to extend the contract another three years?? They are not committed to the success of ORH and we will just flounder for another three years. At the same time can you really blame MassPort for not being committed? I don't. What benefit do they derive from spending time and effort turning ORH around? Answer-none.

On the other hand, what if MassPort actually owned ORH? Now, they would have a vested interest to make ORH successful, as the owners not just a temporary custodian. At the same time, we should not just limit ourselves to MassPort as the only potential buyer... We have 15 months until a $2,000,000 bill is on our desk, SELL ORH now!!!

Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority

Take a look a at how the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority markets Buffalo and Niagara airports. The similarities between Boston and Worcester are striking. Now read about their plans to pump $23 million into Niagara Airport. This is a great story and way too long to print here.

Check out this link:

http://artvoice.com/issues/v5n13/niagara_falls_airport_changing_with_the_world

The line that jumped out to me was "Since it was opened in 1928, and later purchased by the NFTA from the City of Niagara Falls for $2 million in 1970" Maybe the only way to get MassPort truly committed to ORH is to actually sell the airport to me.

Unlike Charley Farley, who said "CloseORH", I say "SellORH" to MassPort..

JetBlue

The past two weeks, I have been putting up blogs that we need to get two of the Embraer shuttles from Boston - JFK diverted to ORH. Trying to back that up with things like the advertisements in the Telegram, no overhead that we could offer, grant monies and the fact many people could be won over from SouthWest..

For the most part, the comments have been that there is no way this will happen. Obviously, everyone has the right to disagree, but let me ask you this. If we do not think that we can get two shuttles from an airport that is managed by the same company (MassPort) as us, exactly what flights or airlines do you think we can get??

The political reality is that based on a $2,000,ooo operating deficit and the current contract with our management company (MassPort):

• July 1st, 2006, the City of Worcester will have to pay $640,000 per year (32%)
• July 1st, 2007, the City of Worcester will have to cover the entire deficit ($2,000,000)

In 15 months, we (the tax-payers of Worcester) are looking at a $2,000,000 bill. My point is that if you think JetBlue does not make sense then tell me what does. If you can not come up with anything then it looks like Charley Farley make in fact be right--CLOSEORH.