Reposting Carl’s Comment
Read Time:2 Minute, 38 Second
Editor’s note: First time I posted Carl’s Comment it included poster’s email. Poster sent me an email to remove it, it was done and reposted w/o Carl’s email. Ironic a post about transparency objects to their email being posted? Not very transparent.
I read Paul’s comment with great interest. I also watched the Spectrum News post, with great interest. I’m assuming that the reason Paul’s comment was elevated to a post was for Bill to reinforce his interview comments that Massport “has no clear plan for a successful airport”.
It’s regrettable that Paul’s questions and Bill’s conclusions are simply the result of not being engaged with what’s going on at the airport. I love this airport and I use this airport, I talk to the people who work there. And as a result, the transparency they have with the goings on leaves no mysteries. So I’m baffled that if Paul has questions, and Bill doesn’t know what’s going on, why haven’t they simply asked Massport?
Here’s what I learned by talking to them.
TSA expansion will be ready for Ft Myers and winter crunch.
No work on 11/29 yet? Scheduled for August. They can’t do anything until they get FAA funding then only after some environmental things involving some “nesting birds” doing their thing. The schedule will be overnight and phased to ensure 11/29 is available for the airlines. Work will be done by fall.
Trees being taken down? It’s their FAA required vegetation management plan requirements. If trees grow too tall, then the FAA will restrict approaches. Don’t believe me? Read up on Westerly, RI airport. They had to shorten their runway, because private property owners wouldn’t allow their trees to be trimmed.
Parking’s a good question. I don’t have an answer to that yet. I’ll have to ask. But I have a suggestion. Jack the prices up for terminal parking from $7 per day to $20 per day, and make a deal with Worcester State to park cars at their remote lot for $7 per day. Heck that’s what the other airports are doing…… “park cheap at our airport” (you just have to take a shuttle).
Master plan? Why don’t you ask for it? They probably need one for FAA funding.
Maybe the people that have questions are simply out of the loop and should start attending the events where massport is represented. Heck, I think their “plan” was pretty well laid out when their CEO gave a talk at Holy Cross a couple months ago.
Better yet, maybe it’s time for Bill to make this website more useful to truly promote the airport instead of using it to sling mud. As a “local businessman who believes the airport can be a great asset”, maybe he can be more proactive by actually “asking” Massport the questions Paul and others have and report back? I mean even blogger Turtle Boy does thorough research, asks questions and reports back instead of just taking the route of “ready, fire, then aiming”.
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This is the thing, it wasn’t until Rusty mentioned to look at the fiscal budget from now until Fiscal Year 2027 to see what Massport wants to do at the airport. If you look up “Worcester Airport Master Plan” you won’t find anything. I’ve tried searching plenty of times before and didn’t know it was in the fiscal budget to find what Massport wants to do. If someone wants to look for a master plan, they’re going to look up Worcester airport master plan, not think of looking at the fiscal budget first.
The trees being taken down I highly doubt is a vegetation issue here, it’s a complete removal of them all. The area between the Atlantic Aviation hangar and Airport Drive had a majority of trees taken down, the area near Coppage Drive and Godard Memorial Drive had trees taken down. Haven’t driven by it in a while but I believe the trees near the end of runway 29 are still up and not taken down.
Highly doubt vegetation is the case here with that because it’s rare that runway 33/15 is open (only recently has it been more open) anyways and that’s the only area where trees were cut. Rusty brought up another point that you’d never see an A320 land there because of how wide it is. So now the only commercial plane that was landing there that still can is American’s but that’s in rare instances. Now since JetBlue only has A320s at ORH, that runway won’t be touched by them and out of all the times I’ve ever seen delta land and takeoff at ORH, I’ve only seen them use runway 33 once to land but never take off. I thought originally A320s could but forgot that the runway isn’t wide enough and needs more than 5000 feet (certain 737s can). Plus, when a plane takes off on 15 or 33, they have to line up on the runway, then back up on their own, then go. Not efficient and only used if there’s wind or if for some reason 29/11 is shut down.
For talking to Massport, there’s no easy way to guarantee you’ll get an actual answer. It could be that simple “we’re making upgrades at ORH and we’ll keep everyone updated” type crap where it’s an answer for the media and not a legitimate answer. You never even hear when things are announced, I mean I didn’t know the JetBlue announcement of the return of MCO was coming until the evening before. I didn’t even know that Massport talked at Holy Cross.
It’s just more communication. When you want info for something, Massport makes it very complicated to find everything. Only thing that’s easy to find is the website with basic info for those flying out of ORH or into ORH.
I want the airport to succeed, like I said in a previous post I have a couple of trips planned to Florida and I’m just waiting till there’s a sale to book my JetBlue tickets out of ORH. I’ve got 3 business trips in November that will require me to fly but I can’t rely on the airport because times are too late to make connections. Our work crew (we fly out of different airports) has to be at the destination by 4pm wherever we go and there’s no chance I can do that with the current flight schedule. Even if I flew out a day earlier, if my flight gets cancelled, I’m either flying out of a different airport or will be there late. Delta has problems with the current times because LaGuardia is too jammed (it’ll arrive to ORH on time but will leave late sometimes). American’s connection times require me to stop at another airport other than JFK most of the time, JetBlue is just gone now with connections. It’s crap