Fiscal 2023 DIF Account

State of Worcester Airport July 14th, 2019

This gets redunant, but JetBlue in the afternoon to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando continue to do well with loads between 80-90%.    We have been supporting this route for over 5 years on an unreliable Embraer 190, which is being replaced, with higher ticket prices and an afternoon flight schedule.    


If we were ever to get the Airbus (150 seats versus 100) with a morning departure, it would be a huge success with lower ticket  prices and more reliability.    Over night we would increase our passenger numbers by 50% with this one change!!   

 JetBlue to NYC continues to struggle.   Although we sometimes get some good numbers, we estimate the average load to be in the 60% range.    Having such a late night arrival is hurting us and this week we had one inbound not make it in, which meant there was no morning flight to depart to JFK.       Cancellations/diversions, however, have not been the problem for the NYC flight, not having a mid-day turn is the problem and is holding back this route from being an asset for JetBlue/Massport.

American Airlines had another cancellation this week. We understand that cancellations happen when you travel , but when you only have one flight and it cancels??   That is not good and American has had way too many cancellations/diversions, since their planes can not use our CAT III landing system. 

Maybe we should at least work with American to bring in planes that can work with our CAT III landing system, that we just invested 30+ million dollars into to help airlines avoid cancellations/diversions into Worcester??    All this taken into consideration, it does look like that our numbers are improving on this flight, although we do not think the loads are at 80%.  

Next month Delta starts to Detroit and we have not seen one advertisement for this flight.   If it were to stay with the same schedule that it begins with in August, early morning departure and late night return, it has a chance at success.   Arriving in Detroit at 6:45 PM starting in September, how many tickets will be sold??  We simply do not see how this flight will have loads over 50%.

It would be great to see an announcement for more direct service to leisure destinations like Myrtle Beach, Gulf Coast and Puerto Rico, but we are hearing nothing.     The last announcement for new service was last August 28th and that service (Delta) has not even started.      

We should be doing so much better!!


Comments

likesowls said…
Thank you for all those efforts to make our Worcester Airport a success. I know we want to take 2-3 day short trips from Worcester in the Summer. Kind of fun to do short trips here and there! We are kind of scared to use Worcester in the Fall because we have had a flight diverted due to fog and we were told it is a common problem at Worcester.
Bill Randell said…
JetBlue planes can take advantage of our CAT III landing system. Fog is not a problem for the jetblue planes.
Jean Walsh said…
My dad has to fly to Detroit for work frequently, he is looking forward to flying out of Worcester rather then Boston! Let’s hope it’s successful
P. Bosque said…
The late night vs morning flights have been a problem for me and my family. Would be grateful to see a daytime flight to Puerto Rico like Logan has.
P. Bosque said…
I too would like to see early flights as the late ones have been a problem for me and my family. It also would be great to see direct flights to Puerto Rico as they do at Logan. If they had it I'd definitely fly out of Worcester instead of Boston.