“Four of five flights lose money…” – Massport CEO addresses current operating state of Worcester Regional Airport
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At least we know Massport is paying attention. This actually may be a good sign??
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At an event sponsored by the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday Massport CEO Rich Davey discussed the current state and potential for added flights and destinations to and from Worcester Regional Airport. Davey, “We continue to look to invest in Worcester Airport to bring other flights as well and we have a few ideas about how to continue to do that. Our continued goal is to continue to make investments, as I said, about $100 million plus in the facility. We have some other things we need to do.” Davey continued, “There’s also opportunities to build business. So it’s not just about passenger air traffic, but opportunities to bring private, for example, maybe cargo in the future, all things that we’re exploring.”
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5 thoughts on ““Four of five flights lose money…” – Massport CEO addresses current operating state of Worcester Regional Airport”
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I said this along time ago on the blog, Worcester airport is not relevant. If it’s true four of five flights are loosing money, Worcester airport is on borrowed time, because jet blue is not doing well, the stock is under 5 with increasing debt. Delta prices are the same as JetBlue on my routes. We are just to close to Boston!
I tend to agree with the Massport CEO’s view on the discount airlines. Let’s just say Worcester landed Allegiant (again), which then departed Worcester after 6 months of service due to disappointing load factors. I believe that news would be detrimental to the airport, it would attract negative headlines and many would believe that was the end of the airport. However, if we were able to bring in United with service to Dulles or Chicago they would probably stick it out like American and Delta have done. We have to admit, one flight is better than no flight. Also, the legacy carriers do offer much better connection options.
Massport needs to figure out a better marketing strategy to fill the flights that we have.
Load factors are good on the JB flights. American and delta not so good. JB must be making money. Off time flights with good loads.
The Orlando flight is definitely the one making money but the Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers flight must be close. JetBlue is actually adding a second flight again to Orlando in April for certain days and also doing it for Fort Lauderdale as well (the added flight time for Fort Lauderdale is at a great time as well) to cater to the April Vacations that schools have up here.
I just came back from Fort Lauderdale yesterday into Worcester and the flight was about 65% full but the flight going down was 100% full (according to the seat map). I think the issue is the times of the Florida flights. I used to think they were great but I flew out of Boston to go down because I’d rather fly down early in the morning and have most of the day there versus having to wait till 4:30 PM to leave and get down there around 8:00 PM and that’s assuming no delay as well. Orlando’s time of 12pm is pretty good because you can easily check into a hotel room, then go get groceries and what you need to get then grab dinner and head back.
The added Fort Lauderdale time for 10 days in April is what I wish was permanent. Leave Worcester at 6:00 AM and arrive at 9:13 AM. Then it leaves Fort Lauderdale at 8:10 PM and lands at 11:16 PM. With that option, there’s multiple perks such as: you feel like you get 2 bonus days down there and can plan things still for those days, you can make a connection to/from San Juan or the Caribbean easily (I’ve seen people do it before), your not rushed to get to Fort Lauderdale’s airport in the morning which security can be a hit or miss, and if you own a property down there, you can easily do a weekend trip down there without taking time off during the week. If those times came back permanently then you’d see a massive boost in that flight. I took the 6am flight from Boston down there on the 11th and 195/200 seats were full
I strongly agree with your flight time suggestions to FLL. So far this winter, I flew down three times to Florida, all three times using Boston as my departing airport. Twice to FLL and one time to WestPalm Beach. I’m 17 miles to FLL and 25 miles to PBI. Another issue is solid JB user due when booking flights. You book a Worcester flight @ 4:30 ish and Mosaic members change to an earlier time out of Boston or PVD. They do this because of the time, you get off the plane, get an uber, which FLL made that much easier in the parking garage with benches to sit on, you wait 20 min for the uber, drive to your place or hotel, go to the super market, its already 9 the day is gone, and for people who are wanting to get out of the winter for a long weekend, the flight time sucks, you want the early time. If the plane took off at 6 am people would connect to the Caribbean, all the flight leaving FLL are between 10 am-12pm. 14 million people went to the DR last year from US airports and FLL plays a huge part in those numbers. I suggested these flights and times a while back on this blog, PR to Worcester, arriving in Worcester at 10 pm plane stays overnight, 6 am to FLL connecting to PR and Caribbean and back to Worcester from PR non stop. JB could also fit a nonstop to PR as well and seasonal to PBI three times a week. If we could get six seasonal flights for six months that would be a great start.