YNG New Website

Much better then their old site:

http://www.yngairport.com

Express Jet

Add this one to the "airlines to watch"--Express Jet.

Here is part of a story from the Daily Report:

Within the next week, ExpressJet Holdings Inc., a regional airline once wholly owned by Continental Airlines Inc., is expected to launch a new carrier under its own name that will focus on point-to-point service — direct flights without herding planes and passengers through hub airports — using 50-seat jets. ExpressJet will go to 24 cities and fly only where there isn't currently any nonstop service — routes like San Diego to Omaha, Austin to Albuquerque, Sacramento to Tucson, Kansas City to Raleigh and New Orleans to Jacksonville.

Ontario, Calif., near Los Angeles, will be the new airline's busiest city, with nonstop flights to 14 cities. Officials say exact schedules will be loaded in computer-reservation systems later this week. Flights will actually begin in April, with the full route network rolled out roughly west to east by May before the start of the summer travel season.

ExpressJet is pursuing a Goldilocks strategy — it wants markets that are not too small to leave planes empty, not too big to attract nonstop competition, but just right for a couple of flights a day with its small jets.

It hopes to connect dots that Southwest Airlines Co. and other major airlines can't afford to serve directly, thus making it easier for business travelers and leisure passengers to reach second-tier cities without the hassle and time of a connection at a hub. "Seat availability has become harder and harder for many communities," says James B. Ream, chief executive of ExpressJet.

Airport Recommendations From 2005

We put together these recommendations two years (summer of 2005) and put on the web page. Unlike the consultants, we put this together for free and in retrospect they were all pretty dam accurate:

1. Rename the airport to Boston-Worcester to approve its appeal as alternative to Boston. This has worked very well for Baltimore Washington and Orlando Sanford International Airport.
2. Improve access to and from Route 290 including reverse signage. We need to pick one route as the preffered route versus attempting to direct prospective passengers from every single exit off Route 290.
3. Contact, pursue and invite leisure airline who target secondary cities and provide discount prices to popular leisure destinations (note targeted airlines below).
4. Replace studies with action. Prospective airlines do their own research before entering a market so why waste monies on consultants when we could utilize these same dollars to help advertise airlines who enter this market?
5. Open lines of communication among involved parties with monthly reports from the Airport Director to the City Council pertaining to the budget and prospective airlines.
6. Explore possibility if naming rights for the terminal or airport itself.
7. Generate positive press for the airport. Correct misconceptions about not being able to landing in bad weather and highlight the high level of general aviation activity.
8. Explore new revenue sources including but not limited to the available restaurant slot and lands remaining idle in the Airport Industrial Park.
9. Revise and update the official web page.
10. Start a bumper sticker campaign to generate civic pride and support of the airport. A small oval with the letters ORH?
11. Improve business traveler services specifically FREE WIFI and FREE PARKING!!!
12. Recruited airlines need to offered a package that waives fixed overhead expenses and allocated a portion of the $455,000 Small Community Air Service Development Grant from the FAA to their advertising needs.
13. Invite airport management companies to Worcester and review the possibility of putting together an RFP whereby we lease the entire airport to a private management company.
14. The PILOT program for non-profits is extremely controversial. We may look into the possibility of asking local non-profits to contribute to a fund that would help attract a daily business flight which would benefit the entire community.
15. Seek help from the State and Federal Government to upgrade landing system from Category 1 to Category 3 which would enable airplanes to land in heavy fog.

13) There was a fiduciary responsibility for the management at ORH to get the highest possible return on our airport for the tax-payers.

This Week Agenda

Some time back I received copies of the Operating Agreement, the FBO contract with SwissPort and the original DOT application. It is a good of time as any to maybe review some of these agreements, post my thoughts and get some input from you since I do not see anything much happening at ORH until this MassPort deal goes down.

Nemeth Part 2

Just read it. Once again I am speechless. Although we all know already that MassPort has clearly kept ORH open these past 8 years, evidently we don't. Who do we have to thank for MassPort saving ORH? The T & G of course, it was "at the urging of the T & G that MassPort came to the rescue" back in 1994. Evidently nobody else would have ever thought of this.

Who was to blame for the decline of ORH, the city councilors of course??? I never realized that the City Councilors had so much power. Evidently the city councilors "badmouthing" and "shoe string budgets" were to much for ORH to overcome. Before I go on, "shoe string budgets"?? What do you call the $8 million worth of technological improvements or a $16 million state of the art terminal? Has Mr Nemeth looked at our "shoe string budget" lately?? If the T & G rescued ORH with their MassPort suggestion in 1994, why did it take 6 years to sign the first operating agreement. Again it was the "city leaders" who "dragged their feet."

Although Mr Nemeth clearly remembers 15 editorials in 1999 alone in favor of MassPort, he has forgotten to mention the numerous editorials the past two years telling us the surveys and consultants were doing a great job and providing a clear path for success. Now we find out the "surveys and costly consultants" are putting us on a "slow journey to nowhere." Again who voted for the surveys and costly consultants??

Why has MassPort then not been able to help ORH? 9/11 is to blame. We all know 9/11 changed alot of things, but why has other airports like Rockford, who also had no commercial service after 9/11, been able to flourish while ORH continues to fail miserably? It was Craig Coy's fault.

This attempt at revisionist history is truly laughable. The people running the airport have simply done a horrible job. Mr Nemeth can try to blame the City Council, the city leaders, 9/11, Craig Coy or how about the people of Worcester or this blog, but the blame lies at the feet of people, like Mr Nemeth, who have been in control of ORH.

Now I read the operating deficit is estimated at $3 million for this fiscal year?? Where the hell does he come up with that? I just got the 6 month numbers from the City Auditor and it was under $1?

How much will MassPort pay, if they take title to ORH? Not mentioned. Maybe if Mr Nemeth had decided years ago to put together an RFP looking for an airport management company or private company to take over ORH, versus voting for surveys and consultants, we would be talking about which company to pick on July 1st. Instead we have only one option, MassPort, and we have absolutely no leverage. That would have been a "no-brainer".

Lastly, I agree with one thing Mr Nemeth said whole-heartedly. We should turn the airport over to the professionals and let them do the job right.

Airport Buildings

Let me try to summarize some of the comments.

1. The old control tower is deplorable
2. The old hangar building has no bathrooms, smells and has little or no heat
3. The building that house Amity is not much better
4. Also heard the roof to the new terminal leaks badly

Is this accurate?

Amity Flight School

Bumped into a friend of mine who goes up to the Amity Flight School. He tells me that the building has very little heat and no water. Can anyone enlighten us on this???

Cramer on Allegiant

Thanks Brett

Allegiant Travel (ALGT - commentary - Cramer's Take): "Given away. An IPO that was given away," Cramer said of the carrier that came public "in the middle of the greated decline in oil in almost five years. It has been a rocket, almost a double, and it may not be done going up yet."

Rockford Airport Sets the Standard Again

WREX TV Rockford, Illinois

ROCKFORD -- We all like to save money and that's exactly what this next announcement is going to help some of us do. Thanks to the Chicago Rockford International Airport watching every nickel and dime, property owners will be able to keep more of that spare change in their pockets.

Administrators didn't expect to be debt free this soon. But now that RFD paid down its debt, we will see the part of our property tax that goes to the airport drop by 62%. It doesn't happen very often, but the airport is actually going give us money. RFD Executive Director Bob O'Brien says, "They're not going to retain that money and carry it over. They are gonna give it back to the rightful owner, the taxpayer."

Three years ago we were asked to chip in more than just taxes. The airport started a campaign to raise $250,000. O'Brien says being debt free just proves they meant what they said. "We want to move towards financial independence where users pay for the facility. In the long run this could bring economic wealth to the community."

That contribution to the community is a goal of the airports. The Chicago Rockford International Airport pumps in about $719,000 to the community. That's the 2nd largest in the state next to O'Hare. The goal is to have a $1 million economic impact.

WoMag Our Turn

This week's issue:

A gentle landing

With discussions in progress regarding the fate of our little airport on the hill, we feel it is appropriate to mention the unmentionable: Maybe it’s high time that we simply let it go.
We are now in the final half-year of the city’s contract with Massport to manage the facility, which expires in June. A $2.3 million budget offset by a relatively paltry amount of revenue translates into a significant operating deficit, of which Massport has been absorbing a declining amount. The city manager is already engaged in negotiations regarding the future of the agreement.

Everyone is familiar with the story. We are blessed/saddled with a once-quaint little facility whose remoteness from anywhere outside the city limits handicaps its attractiveness to commercial carriers. While Massport can spin in principle the importance of maintaining a regional network of facilities in which Worcester can take its rightful place, that is of little comfort to a city due to shoulder the full deficit come June. Cocktail party conversations about a wind farm are provocative but fail to address the fact that there are still bonds to be paid off for past improvements there. It is destined to continue to be an airport — simply not a profitable one.

The latest of a series of studies — $400,000, this time — is apparently poised to contribute relatively little to what amounts to the same old conversation: Maybe there’s a little money in niche markets and this thing called “general aviation,” but there’s no ready cure-all to the commercial carrier dilemma. Our facility is destined to be only marginally attractive to airlines during the best of times; and the rest of the time it won’t be able to pull its own weight. This has simply been proven by the sheer, heroic and ongoing efforts to make a go of it.

What to do? The city had an analogous situation on its hands a decade ago when it dealt with the fates of City Hospital and the Belmont Home. Both facilities were venerable artifacts of an age when it made sense for municipalities to maintain such facilities for its citizens. Their sustainability was compromised by the rising costs and changing pictures of health and nursing care, yet arguments for their closure were compromised by issues that were essentially related to municipal pride: Shouldn’t a mature and vigorous city be able to provide such services?

The answer was a decreasingly gentle “no,” and eventually the city got itself out of the health care business. It’s easy enough to lament the skyrocketing cost of health care, but it does not follow that the city was obligated to foot the bill. Nobody, to our knowledge, has seriously regretted those decisions of a decade ago. We have all moved on.

We believe that it is time, once and for all, for the city to get out of the airport business. It’s too big a drag on the municipal budget. Since the airport is apparently important to Massport’s portfolio of facilities, and since Massport has the mass, expertise and connections to actually manage it, let’s strike the deal to put it into their hands. Certain safeguards have to be made regarding use of the 1,300 acres, of course, but it’s simply time to do it. A decade from now we’ll have no second thoughts. And, for what it’s worth, we’ll still have an airport. o

Land RFP

The deadline was initially January 19th and the airport website still says January 19th? Anyone know the status of this RFP?

If the deadline has been extended, until when?

Was there any responders to the first deadline or not?

Airport Numbers

July 1, 2006 thru December 21, 2006

Revenues

Airfield 62,626
Airfield
Support 97,326
Terminal
Building 119,814
State aid -398
Misc 84,182

Total 363,470


Expenses

Salaries 451,116 (more then total revenues by almost $90,000)
Maintenance 293,336
Debt Service 332,249
Fringe 201,670

Total 1,278,371


6 Month Loss (914,901)


ORH is losing on average 152,483 per month.

Since 100% of the debt service (332,249) is the City of Worcester, we would pay 33% on the balance (914,901-332,249) or $250,403. In other words of the total 914,901 of debt incurred the first 6 months of this fiscal year, ORH cost Worcester 582,652 and MassPort 332,249.

Youngstown-Warren

Story from the Vindicator:

VIENNA — Despite funding challenges, the Western Reserve Port Authority plans to proceed with plans to have private companies build hangars at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport to spur development.

The port authority, which runs the airport, tentatively approved advertising Wednesday for companies to submit proposals to build the hangars in two areas on the north side of the airport entrance near state Route 193.

The two areas are adjacent to the Cafaro Co. hangar on land that is already paved, said Steve Bowser, director of aviation at the airport. The cost to build the hangars there would be minimal compared to an area on the south side of the airport that officials had previously hoped to develop, said Duane Johnson, a consultant working on the project.

To build the hangars on the south side would require Federal Aviation Administration funding to build a road and aprons to serve the hangars, and the FAA wants to devote its funding to improvements to the fencing around the airport over the next two years, Bowser said.

Project moves along

Regarding the fencing, Johnson reported to port authority members that the project to replace 7-foot fencing with 10-foot fencing is about one-third complete. Another third will be done with $900,000 in FAA money in 2007, and the remainder will probably be done in 2008 with about $900,000 more in FAA money, Johnson said. The fencing is needed to keep out birds and other wildlife for the safety of aircraft, Bowser said.

In other business, Bowser said Allegiant Air, the regularly scheduled carrier making flights between the local airport and Sanford International Airport near Orlando, Fla., has had above-average (for the company) passenger numbers for January, February and April, but is reporting slow sales so far in March.

To help improve Allegiant's numbers, Bowser said, the port authority is likely to approve $30,000 to $50,000 of port authority funding in the coming months to help market Allegiant.
Early last year when Allegiant first came to the airport, the port authority used a $250,000 Department of Transportation Small Community Air Services grant to market Allegiant through Rubenstein Associates of Liberty.

Port Authority member John Masternick, president and CEO of Windsor House Inc. of Girard, said he has instructed the marketing department of Windsor House to prepare some marketing assistance to the airport, because the airport does not have its own marketing department.

Windsor House offers an annual rewards program to employees, Masternick said, which involves trips. This year the trip will include an Allegiant flight to Orlando, Masternick said. It's an idea — having area businesses offer Allegiant flights as employee bonuses — that the port authority might be able to use, he said.

Westchester Airport?

Westchester County learned yesterday that JetBlue plans to begin flying in and out of the county airport by March 5.

"They told us they are coming," said Deputy Transportation Commissioner Harry Stanton. "They haven't told us where they're going to fly to, but we expect to hear more about that on Monday."

With the low-cost airline obliged to begin service by March 5, JetBlue should soon begin selling seats from Westchester. Airport manager Peter Scherer has said JetBlue has told him the routes it was considering included Orlando, West Palm Beach and Chicago.

City Auditor

Not sure if I heard this right but during the City Council meeting I believe the City Auditor said that MassPort has 1.5 million and the City of Worcester has 1.6 million targeted to the Airport Enterprise Account to break-even. If this is right then the airport is on track to lose $3.1 million this fiscal year???

And we have a 1.6 BILLION unfunded pension liability.

Lottery For Sale??

INDIANAPOLIS | The state began formally courting potential Hoosier Lottery lease bidders earlier this month, a move that has drawn harsh complaints from Democrats. Gov. Mitch Daniels would need permission from the Legislature before he could sign a cash-generating lease, and critics say the decision to seek proposals from interested firms belies the spirit of compromise the Republican leader stressed in a speech last week.

"The bill to sell the lottery has not yet been heard, and they're already putting out, apparently, feelers for it," complained House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend. "I just think that's jumping the law, if not the gun." Bauer, who then was in the minority, was an outspoken critic of last year's $3.8 billion private lease of the Indiana Toll Road, which was negotiated without prior approval from lawmakers.

Daniels did, however, make clear that his administration would issue a "request for qualifications" from potential lottery bidders when he announced his plan to attack brain drain in the state last month. The goal is to negotiate a multidecade lease that would attract an up-front payment of at least $1 billion to fund merit-based scholarships and research endowments for students.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich first proposed the concept last summer, billing a lottery lease as a potential windfall for K-12 education. New Jersey officials also have expressed interested in the idea. "We believe there's going to be a lot of interest," Daniels said. "We've been told to expect -- and I think Illinois has been told to expect and New Jersey's been told to expect -- a significant number of entities to express interest."

Indiana has hired the investment bank Morgan Stanley to evaluate the proposals it receives, though Daniels does not expect to get firm bids before the General Assembly adjourns in April. Legislation to authorize a Hoosier Lottery lease was introduced last week in the Republican-led Senate. But the proposal has received little public support from lawmakers of either party.

"I think the privatization of the lottery is not something that we need to do," said state Rep. Bob Kuzman, D-Crown Point. "We can raise that money, make the money and utilize that money here in the state of Indiana.

Bob Nemeth

I just finished reading a story by Robert Z Nemeth in the paper today regarding ORH. I can not find story on-line, sorry. Right now I do not know what to say, except that I am stunned. I actually agree with pretty much everything he says,since he pretty much echoes much that has been said for two years on this blog. Here are the highlights:

1. Surveys and consultants will not save ORH.
2. The initital IMG report that cost $100,000 (actually 99,750) came from the city. Since then 110,350 (54,640 31,850 and 24,860) has been spent from the DOT Grant on IMG to attract a commercial carrier. Now there is another amendment to pay IMG $70,000 more.
3. Past Airport Commissioner and current Airport Board Member Robert Z Nemeth finds it "hard to sort out how the DOT money or the funds allocated for the consultants, is being spent."
4. Past Airport Commissioner and current Airport Board Member Robert Z Nemeth realizes "1) few of the findings and recommendations offered by a string of reports over the years are new or surprising and 2) none of the outlined goals and needs for the future of could be met without MassPort's help.
5. Mr Nemeth also points out that the current RFP that had a deadline this past Wednesday received no reponse???
   
6. "ORH future pretty much depends on the outcome of the city's negotiations with MassPort and the extent and conditions of the authority's involvement.

We here have been saying for two years that more surveys and consultants, while reading Editorial after Editorial in the Telegram that all of these plans and surveys are putting us on the right track, was a waste of money. Have you ever heard anyone criticize the Master Plan before? in fact at the last community meeting in December only compliments were given. In addition were not these surveys and consultants/studies authorized by the Airport Commission board, that Mr Nemeth chaired and now serves upon, as he says, for the past 15 years?

What really kills me is that Mr Nemeth is not sure exactly how the $442,615 DOT grant has been spent? Maybe Mr Nemeth should file a request for a summary/break-down of how the monies have been spent to date for the next Airport Board Meeting. Not naming a Blue Ribbon Committee to disperse the DOT monies was a huge mistake.

Mr Nemeth then proceeds to tell MassPort again that our future rests in their hands during negotiations. Next time you are trying to sell your house to a prospective buyer tell them that your future financial well-being depends on their offer and that they are the only buyer. Do you think that they will low ball you?? Bottom line is that ORH is gone to MassPort either via a long-term lease or sale and Mr Nemeth now wants to distance himself from all the mistakes that he has been involved with at ORH. Not going to happen here.

There have been two huge mistakes the past two years. First, we never should have lost Allegiant and if need be the whole $452,000 DOT grant should have been spent on them. Don't forget they helped us keep primary airport status last year which meant $1,000,000 from the FAA. Losing them killed any chances of getting another commercial airlines and now we are in danger of not achieving 10,000 passengers this year or losing $1,000,000. Second, not negotiating with any other potential airport management or private company even though we only had a three year extension of the operating agreement. The day the current agreement was signed (July1st, 2004) is the day we should have started this search. Now we have less then 6 months and we only have one buyer (MassPort).

Airport Commissioners

Just reread my last blog, let me clarify one thing.... I do honestly believe that the Airport Commissioners care about the future of ORH and I have respect for anyone that serves on any board. Have you been to a Planning or Zoning Board meeting??? You can not pay me enough money to serve on any of those boards.

Putting that aside, I feel the current Airport Commission, however, must be conducting their business outside the scrutiny of the monthly official meeting, when less then a majority is present. How else can you explain the complete lack of any questions/information on any of these pertinent matters during the meetings??? Some may argue that certain information should in fact be done in secret, to protect the underlying negotiations. I can appreciate that and agree but that is why you have an Executive Session. When was the the last time an Airport Commission called for an Executive Session??

We are in a critical time the next 5 months on ORH and the decisions we make during that time may be with us for the next 20-30 years. I only wish that they Airport Commission would bring all the issues out on the table for all us to see.

December Airport Minutes

I have posted the December Airport Commission Board minutes on-line, go to the home page, hit board minutes on the left and then December, 2006. Thanks Pete.. What can you say, except the same thing over and over again:

1. In January, 2005, when nobody was looking on the Airport Commission Board Minutes, they were 9 pages long. Now flash forward 23 months, when they are put on this web site (as well as the city web site), they are less then 2 pages.
2. Although the airport is now losing over $2,000,000 per year, there is nothing on the financials in the monthly meeting.
3. Although there is now 6 months left in the current operating agreement with MassPort, there is nothing on this.
4. Lastly, there is nothing on how IMG is doing on the recruitment efforts for a commercial airline.

Evidently according to the official Airport Commision Minutes, none of the commissioners are concerned with the financial stability of ORH, the future operating agreement effective July 1st of this year or how IMG is doing(after we spent over $100,000 of the DOT grant monies on them) to help recruit a commercial carrier???

My favorite line, however, concerns "problems with the suspended/installation in Swissport Hangar 2 that required removal of that material that due to deterioration of the grid sytem holding it in place." I read something similar to that in a report on a housing inspection report, do you know what it meant??? In essence the runners for the drop ceiling were either rotting or the lag bolts that held the the runners were falliing out and the ceiling was falling done... Are we to assume that this entry in the Official Board Minutes means the ceiling is falling done in Hangar 2?? I do not know...

Per usual every time I read the monthly Airport Commission Minutes, I end up with more questions then answers--the complete opposite of what the Public Open Meeting Laws were intended to do..

Congressman McGovern

I was thinking the other day how a few us met at Congressman McGovern's office with others a few years back regarding the DOT Small Community Air Service Grant. At that time ORH had failed in two prior applications.

By the end of the meeting, I was convinced that Congressman McGovern was going to make sure that this would not happen again. He mentioned amongst, some things I forgot, a call to the Senators Offices and the head of the DOT, Minerta. Sure enough we received $455,000.

To date this money simply has not been spent correctly and mainly spent on consultants, versus an airline. Let us not forget the job the Congressman did for ORH or the fact we need 10,000 passengers this year to keep primary airport status and $1,000,000.