I doubt you'll see Breeze at ORH anytime soon. When Breeze initially announced they would start service they said they were going to target underutilized airports or smaller regional airports to have service out of. I don't see Bradley and TF Green as being "underutilized".
If Breeze comes into Massachusetts, it will be to Logan, I'd almost put money on that. As far as our less than mediocre flight options at ORH, I think we've beaten that dead horse into oblivion. It's clear with our lousy flight options that Massport is leveraging the desire to expand at Logan by Delta, AA, and JetBlue to get service at ORH. If those 3 weren't jockeying for market share and expansion at Logan, the only thing you'd see flying out of ORH would be pigeons and seagulls. But at least we can brag about that fancy $100 million plus landing system that was supposed to put ORH back on the map.
There is ZERO reason that this airport can't be successful. ZERO. We are the 2nd largest city in New England and have a rather large college student population as well. We don't need all these flights to NY City. For Delta to be successful here that LaGuardia flight either needs to be much earlier in the day or better yet switched to Atlanta. Atlanta would open up the entire Delta route map. American should switch their ORH flight to Charlotte and ditch JFK. Charlotte is one of American's hubs to the Southeastern US and Caribbean and that would be hugely successful here as well.
In my original comment that was highlighted by the blog I noted that I would have to make 3 connections to get to Fort Myers on American out of ORH. Most other Florida destinations would require 2 connections with the exception of Miami.
On Delta, the flight to LaGuardia is so late that either I can't get to where I want to go without overnighting at LaGuardia or I'd arrive close to midnight. It just doesn't work for me and I'm sure it doesn't work for a lot of other people.
And then there are all those people that still have no idea that ORH even has flights. The whole social media advertising thing is missing a large portion of the population. I don't think I know a single person who has a Twitter account. They need to do a full-scale advertising blitz.
They completely wasted a great marketing opportunity with the free parking up at ORH. There should have been a billboard on both sides of 290 all summer long. They also need better signage. There's a boring looking green highway sign on 290. They need to come up with some kind of logo and post that on the sign. Something that will get people's attention. They need to be creative in the way they advertise. When people are stuck in rush hour traffic crawling along on 290 they'll literally be staring at ORH billboards and signage. Better signage around the city and at the airport itself would help too. I drove by the airport today and I don't think that sign at the end of Airport Drive at 122 has been changed since the 80's.
I get it that service expansion takes time, there are issues with available gate slots at other airports, etc., but in the 2 1/2 years since I moved back to Worcester I have seen very little effort to make this airport successful. No one wants ORH to be successful more than me. I live less than 3 miles from the airport. It's just not worth the effort for me to utilize it at this time. I have to book 2 flights to Florida during the first half of next year and possibly another in early November. I also have a trip planned to Arizona next April/May and while I'd love the convenience of using ORH, unless something changes with the schedule there, I'll be going out of Providence on Delta.
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Also speaking of that, seems like there is an international market that Manchester and Bradley are trying to expand too. Manchester potentially is going to be talking with Icelandair and Aer Lingus about getting flights out of Manchester (those airlines use 737s and A321s), but also something that I thought was intersting, Bradley and Providence are really focusing on getting international airlines. Providence has been going over to conventions to Europe with international airlines in order to get service. Bradley has sparked interest in a flight to London (because the market to be there is absolutely crazy) and British Airways has been considered a front runner for a possible airline with others out there but only time will tell. Don’t be surprised though if those three airports potentially get something soon while worcester has nothing but dust left on it from no other airlines wanting to go.
Obviously there is a market for it.
Soon they will go to a reduced schedule.
There's clearly demand here for flights to Florida as is evidenced by JetBlue putting a larger plane on the Fort Lauderdale route and I'm sure Delta/American would do quite well with a better departure time and/or flights to better hubs such as Atlanta or Charlotte.
There must be a reason why we can't get decent service at ORH. It honestly defies logic in regard to the lack of flights up there. Massport needs to get their act together. I know at least half a dozen people (myself included) that would prefer to use ORH whenever possible but end up using either Boston or Providence because the options at ORH stink.
Someone had posted above that Massport and specifically ORH did not attend a recent Airports Council Conference. If that is true, it's just another indication that Massport really doesn't care about expanding service here. That is exactly the type of thing they should be doing to increase service here. Again, if it is true, that really says a lot.
Let's not even get into the fact that they don't market this airport at all. Facebook and Twitter don't count. The whole social media thing is overrated. How do you waste a golden opportunity to market the airport with the free parking that was offered? I'd love to know the excuse for that blunder.
I used ORH quite frequently when Direct Air was here. A relative of mine used Direct Air from ORH at least 20 times a year to fly between here and his vacation home in Florida. Now he uses either Bradley or TF Green. Sure, the Direct Air planes were old and financially, Direct Air was run horribly, but I don't think people cared because every single flight to Florida that I took with them was either full or damn near close to it. ORH is a great airport with a lot of potential. Why we need multiple flights to NY City is beyond me. If and/or when we get better service and a better schedule at ORH I'll come back but for the time being my money is going to be spent at TF Green.
feel like they want to fail so they can tell MASSPORT that they tried.