Fiscal 2023 DIF Account

Airport Comment

 

 

 

 There’s no inaccurate comments. It’s been known that Worcester has a history of delays and American never even took off from worcester a couple days ago and JetBlue left a couple hours late. This week will be a very telling week for operations at ORH. 

 It made national headlines when the plane from JFK had people sitting there for an hour because no one was there to bring the gate to it. They’ll have to be good or else there will be real problems and people’s reputation of the airport are not going to be good. 

 Five out of the next 8 days the FLL is sold out and the other ones are at 90% capacity. From the 22nd to the 27th as well as the 29th, 30th, and May 1st, the return flight to ORH is sold out. April 15th, 16th, and 19th to 23rd both JetBlue flights to JFK are sold out (the 17th mid day turn is sold out). 

The delta flight to LaGuardia is at really good numbers for the next two weeks as well. Would not surprise me to see the A220, A320, or A321 make an appearance at least once these next 2 weeks at Worcester because of how packed the flights will be. It happened in March during spring break where the A321 with mint, made an appearance because of how packed it was (that’s a 159 seat aircraft). 

Hopefully Rectrix (which I believe is the one who is in charge of operations for those flights) gets it together finally because if they can do good the next 2 weeks, then Worcester’s positive reputation can go a long way with getting more flights to the airport,

 


 

Comments

Common Sense said…
Read in the Globe that there are two bills currently in the RI legislature concerning colleges. One bill would require them to pay property taxes on their real estate. The other bill would put a 2% annual tax on their endowments which will be used for the public schools.
Rusty said…
Rectrix has zero to do with 99.999% of the flight delays. Their contracted to supply the staff for the ground ops. Almost always always Rectrix has the aircraft ready to go prior to JB being read to release the aircraft & they delays are caused elsewhere. Weather, flight attendant issues, booking software issues (common, at least when I was there), maintenance issue, flight release problems, etc. How do I know? I worked for them at ORH for 2 years……Rectrix is not the cause of JB’s failures at ORH. JB does it to themselves.
The leaving the plane at the gate is a different story & from my buddies who still work there that issue was handled at the highest lvl to ensure it nvr happens again.
Rusty said…
Just to add to this. The likely hood of an A320/A321 sub is rare. Those have absolutely zero to do with pax demand. Those are solely replacements for broken E190’s. Every single time you see a 320/321 from JB at ORH it’s not due to high pax demand, its because every single E190 available is broken. JB hates the E190. They realized it was a huge mistake buying them & they are working with Airbus to get their A220’s as fast as possible so they can replace their E190’s as quick as they can. They know their maintenance headaches. JB hates the E190 probably more than anyone. A Mint class A321 of all things is extremely unlikely. That’s not a backup. That’s the absolute last resort if all else fails. I don’t think people realize how many other alternatives had to fail for ORH to get the Mint A321 that once time a fee months back. If the original plane breaks, first option is another E190. If theirs none available, they resort to an A320. ORH usually gets an A320 every other month or so. Not super uncommon as Plan B. If zero A320’s are available (highly unlikely as it’s their most popular type) then they will resort to an A321 in Standard config (all economy). But by this point they usually just cancel the flight as the 321 is in high high demand on popular routes and it’s not worth their time sending it to ORH. If all those options fail & they just have to have to keep the flight, then & only then will they sub in an A321 mint config. IF one’s even available. Every single one JB has is used daily so the fact that one was even available was shocking. Probably only because it was a late flight from FLL & went right back to FLL first thing in the AM. On top of that JB really doesn’t want to send A321’s to ORH ever regardless as once density altitude is factored in, ORH’s runway is too short for an A321 fully loaded. It can’t take a full load of pax + fuel from ORH - FLL. It either has to take less fuel & make a pit stop or cap the pax count at about 75% capacity. If you noticed…the FLL A321 only left ORH with 67 pax…it landed with 41. It had absolutely nothing to do with high demand. It’s so rare in fact that in the history of JB flying to ORh since 2013, that was the 2nd time ever they have sent an A321. And to top alllll that off ORH is not a Mint location. ORH doesn’t have the facilities currently to staff the mint cabin or to clean the mint cabin or to restock the mint cabin. The location doesn’t have mint bag service or any mint offerings. Hence when the Mint class A321 was used, the mint cabin was left unused. It wasn’t even available as an upgrade. It was there, but even if you wanted to pay, they wound not let you get a mint seat. Mint was not an option on the website for that flight.
Also Rectrix doesn’t service Delta so anything service related has zero to do with them. Rectrix also historically never serviced American when they flew the E145’s to Philly. They do service the E175’s to JFK as of rn however the contract is ending & American chose to use their own staff once again. Think they were unhappy with how much the Rectrix was costing them vs using their own people. That switch will happen soon.
Jake said…
1. Thank you "Common Sense" for trying to deflect this outrageous post.
2. Thank you Rusty for your honest and accurate comments.
3. Shame on this blog's Administrator for creating a post from an outlandish comment.
I challenge you to create a post fom this comment.

The comments this "anonymous" person is making are truly innacurate as he/she is making conclusions from his/her assumptions. Yes, delays and cancellations occur out of Worcester. But this person automatically assumes is a Worcester problem. Classic "Ready, Fire, Aim". When flights are delayed out of Worcester, the reasons are no different from other airports. Mechanicals, weather, deicing, crew legality, ATC ground stop and delays, etc. Cancellations? Jetblue had 150 yesterday. Over 50 in Boston alone. Republic (AA)? 53. 2 in Boston 2 in PVD. Overall, Worcester probably has a better on time performance than surrounding airports. Has anyone ever heard the pilot announce "we're number 12 for take off, or we're number 7 for deicing, or my favorite... "folks we got you here in time, but we dont have a gate for you". 4 jetbridges, 3 airlines, and 5 flights per day..... you'll never have a delay...... oh wait..... one.... yes, the one that made national news.... I'm guessing between jetblue, American, and Delta there have been over 10,000 arrivals into Worcester since they started serving the airport and how many times did they have a delay with the jetbridge? Yea, once. So, get over it.
Anonymous said…
So first replying to Rusty, yes the E190 is not the best airplane. It's the oldest and it's mechanical issues are probably the #1 reason flights that use the aircraft are cancelled or delayed. The A321 with mint was probably used because other than the E190 and A220, it has the least amount of coach seats. (A220 not being used because of certain routes it's used on and there's probably only 10 in service right now) It's in interesting comment though that you made with the A320/A321 being at full capacity, because if Spirit (although being bought out soon most likely) were to come to ORH, and decided to go to a very popular spot like Orlando, how would that aircraft do compared to Jetblue's? I believe you on the A321 max capacity but it would be interesting because if runway issues with that aircraft are a problem for Jetblue, how would Spirit handle it since all of their aircraft's are either A319s, A320s, or A321s? I would imagine they would use A319's because that's the smallest aircraft they have but if they decided to use the 320 or 321, what would have to change for them? And yes, I know ORH isn't a mint location and it will never be but that plane only had mint seats on it and yes was not offered to anyone. If people were to have sat there, it would've only been because they wanted to balance the weight of the plane but it wasn't needed like you said. Rectrix I believe when needed is in charge of refueling the aircraft which when I go up to ORH a lot, Delta and Jetblue use it the most.

Jetblue just has not been having the best month either. They even had a weird schedule yesterday where the mid day flight to ORH arrived on time, and they cancelled the return trip, cancelled the evening flight to ORH, and used that aircraft this morning for the FLL flight down there. The aircraft that came from FLL last night left ORH an hour later than scheduled to go to JFK. Jetblue likes to use their aircraft multiple times a day, but letting an E190 sit at ORH for 17 hours and not make money? Wonder what the decision was in that. And that was not because of mechanical issues, or anything like that, when I looked at flightradar24, the Jetblue mid day return flight and evening flight were already cancelled on Saturday morning for Sunday

Anonymous said…
Now replying to Jake, there is no "ready, aim, fire" approach I am making. When you fly out of an airport, it is expected that your plane you are flying on, when it arrives on time from wherever it's coming from, that it also departs on time especially when airlines like to create connection windows of under an hour (when my family flew to Florida last year, they had a 30 minute layover at DCA and only had that much time to get from their first flight to the next). There are a lot of flights too where connection times are very short and if you lose that window where your first flight leaves late, your screwed.

For example, if you wanted to book a flight from Worcester to Nashville for June 22nd (when Delta's schedule changes to where American's time slot was). I could use delta and leave ORH at 5:30 and arrive to LGA at 6:31 then leave LGA to go to Nashville at 7:30 giving me a 59 minute layover. If that first flight is late departing Worcester, I am screwed because they don't even advertise it, but the delta connection flights land at a separate area from Delta's main hub because of construction going on at the terminal so you have to take a shuttle to go from the side area to the main. Last time I did a flight like that (but flying into ORH), it took me about a full hour to deplane, go from the gate I was at to find the shuttle, hop on the shuttle, then walk to my gate for the flight to ORH. Which isn't an issue for me to go faster next time because it was my first time at LGA but I could do it quicker now since I know where to go. But if your handicapped or need to use an elevator, you are screwed making that connection, and since there's no more flights after that to go from LGA to Nashville, I'm either spending the night at the airport or making another connection flight possibly. Another thing about LGA (and I am not sure if it was just this one time or if it's a daily thing), when I went to board the plane at LGA, everyone on the plane had to walk down a long pathway outside on the tarmac (probably about a fifth of a mile long) and there was no jet bridge so we had to use the steps to go up into the aircraft (the delta connection one). And there was an older couple on that plane and they were struggling to make it up the steps. It was due to the construction going on but if that's the same situation like it was back in January,(which I would imagine so because Delta's terminal isn't expected to be done till 2024 according to their website) I couldn't see certain people making it in less than an hour.
Anonymous said…
The point I'm making is like I said before, most to all people that fly to JFK or LGA from Worcester are flying to make a second flight. When you have such a tight window to do that, you can not afford any delays on that first flight. Someone might fly for the first time and get delayed and ok it happens and they might try it again. However, if it gets delayed a second or third time, then they might give up on flying out of Worcester because at that point, they would just expect it. Seeing that an on time percentage is around 50%-60% isn't a good thing either and for some people, makes them think that they are taking a risk flying out of ORH or expect to execute a backup plan. A lot of people have that mindset too where if something doesn't work one time or they hear one bad thing about something, then they won't even try it. There are definitely those type of people out there that think now, "Does problems like this happen in Worcester" or "I wouldn't even chance flying out of Worcester if that happened there" or the best one "Is Worcester actually reliable to fly into if something likes this happens?" I guarantee you as well that there are people that were on that flight that'll never do it again because of that. It's not because they are rude or anything, it's because there are people where if you make a mistake whether it's a small airport, small business, or something else, they will never try it again. The only good thing that came out of that was people found out Worcester has a flight from JFK to ORH, but not for a good reason. So people will never "get over it" because it could definitely cost Worcester future business. I guarantee you if an airline is thinking of flying out of ORH, and they heard about the situation, they are definitely going to ask why it happened and if they were to use rectrix and not their own people, would rectrix be a reliable company. Jetblue's record for the month of April has not been good either. Boston Herald just made an article about Jetblue and the delays they've had as well as other problems, this is the first line of the article, "Wanna get away? Well, you could be in trouble if you're flying Jetblue these days." The article also states, "Jetblue also had 90 delays at Boston Logan on Sunday, which was 52% of the entire airport's 174 delays."

Don't believe any of that, Boston Herald also released a poll with the question "Will you continue to book Jetblue after all the recent cancellations?"
5% said "They can't control the weather,"
20% said "Unsure, I'm hesitant now,"
26% said "Yes, I still think it's the best airline,"
49% said "No, they're clearly unreliable."

People don't like to take second chances, and if Jetblue is delaying or cancelling so many flights and seems to be the only airline with that many delays or cancellations, their reputation is going to go down which will affect the JFK flights at Worcester. Especially since Delta likes to be competitive with prices up in Worcester with Jetblue.

Like I said before, I don't want the airport to go down in flames or ever lose any airlines, but if they want to expand, go with one that has a good reputation of on time flights and arrivals like Delta who in 2021, has 87.8% of flights arrive within 15 minutes of the scheduled time last year, not Jetblue where it was only 68.5%. There were even times back in the winter where the flight from FLL that was suppose to arrive at 1:13am (or around there) would arrive around 4am. No one is going to want to leave that late and arrive that late especially families with younger children. (Source for the on time performance just look up "Airline on time performance 2021")
Anonymous said…
I fly both BOS and ORH. The flight issues are a JetBlue problem, not an ORH problem.

I did a round-trip turn direct BOS to ATL this week. I normally would have used RH through New York to get to Atlanta, probably on Delta but given the recent problems I did not want to have a connection which doubled my chance of a problem with the flight

I flew BOS direct and we had a 3 hour delay at BOS. They announced it last minute so I was at the airport very early for no reason. The gate attendant said it was a mechanical problem and then waiting for a new pilot. On the plane, once in the air we got the real reason. The apologetic captain said that he and the first officer were called in on a day off because they had no other people to fly the plane. That was why we were delayed.

On the return flight from Atlanta it was supposed to go off at 6PM. I got an email from JetBlue at 6 am announcing a delay already. I had no confidence that this flight wouldn’t be canceled so I switched to a Delta flight (which was basically on time, though Delta has had its own lack of employees issues) .

It’s not just at ORH. JetBlue needs to get its act together, somehow. Wasting time trying to buy another airline seems to be a major distraction unless they are buying a large employee base and not just additional routes, gates and planes that they cwill not be able to operate