Fiscal 2023 DIF Account

2022 Audited Statements Are Out

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Page 95 of 217


 . (d) Net OPEB Liability (City) The City’s net OPEB liability of $1,225,410 was measured as of June 30, 2022 for the year ended June 30, 2022 and was determined by an actuarial valuation as of July 1, 2020.


***   Editor's note these numbers are (in thousands of dollars)

$1,225,410

times   $1,000

equals   $1,225,410,000

If we are doing this right, our OPED liability is over $1.2 billion dollars!!!!!




Comments

Anonymous said…
The cover letter from Robert Stearns is a very informative summary. Reading it reminded me of one topic I have not thought of recently, the ticket surcharge. What is the balance of that fund and what is the money being used for? I tried to find the answer in the report but I could not.
Anonymous said…
Just came across this article about Avelo in New Haven:

https://www.cbia.com/news/economy/avelo-airlines-expansion-plans

Apparently they are doing really well there. Still don't know why Massport doesn't push for more flights to Florida. Not to mention the flight prices at ORH are ridiculous. I'm flying out of Providence in a few weeks to Florida for about 1/3 of the cost of going out of ORH. Nonstop too. ORH really needs to take a step back and figure out what kind of airport they want to be and what type of traveler they want to target.
David Z. said…
I don’t think MassPort really cares about ORH. All the other airports in Southern New England are adding service & airlines. Meanwhile ORH doesn’t even have their nonstop to Orlando back which was consistently one of their best routes pre-COVID.
Rusty said…
^With a runway resurfacing and taxiway construction taking place this year, I do not expect them to add any additional routes until this is completed.
Anonymous said…
WHen will that construction be complete?
Anonymous said…
And after they dump another quarter of a billion dollars into the money pit that is ORH we still won't have decent service because I can already hear the next excuse that the terminal isn't big enough so they'll have to dump another $100 million or so to expand the terminal.

Massport needs to buckle down and tell the airlines that are here to give us better service and if they won't then they will find some other airline that will. They need to quit thinking that ORH will be the next TF Green or Bradley. It will never happen. Pease, New Haven, etc. are hugely successful with the service they have and I don't see hundreds of millions being spent at those airports. That's what ORH should try to be.
David Z. said…
And why didn’t MassPort do the runway work during COVID when they had no airline service? They certainly have deep enough pockets to have done the work then?
Clark Griswald said…
These comments are laughable. (Except for Rusty who’s the only person with a logical head on his shoulders). Why is there this mindset that Massport decides what airlines fly and where they fly to and how much they charge? If massport didn’t care, why have they spent the millions they’ve dumped into the airport already? The reason why Worcester is not like PVD, BDL, MHT, Pease is because the City Fathers had the wear with all to invest in those airports decades ago. Worcester has a lot of catching up to do to get even close to those others. The funniest line was why massport didn’t do the runway during Covid! Projects like that are in a schedule and based on FAA funding approval. Unless someone at massport wants to do time at Levanworth, they can’t use their own funds from BOS. And for a project like this, you can’t pick up the phone and call David Letourneau at Pioneer paving and say, hey we need some asphalt. FAA needs to approve their funding, the project needs to be designed and estimated, bids need to go out, contracts need to be awarded, and the work needs to be done during construction season. Another words, it takes a long time to do a project like this. If you want to be mad at someone, how about the region’s businesses who cried that they need flights to business markets and not just one a day. Where are the Chambers who should be rallying the businesses instead of just showing up for photo ops. Last time I checked NYC is a pretty big business market. And last time I checked, there are 4 flights a day. So where is the business community now? Crickets. I won’t blame the airlines if they say either we’ll leave entirely or just go to the less profitable leisure markets.

In Rusty we trust!
Anonymous said…
ORH shouldn't be trying to be a PVD, BDL, or MHT. It never will be. I think I said that in my previous post. They should be trying to be more like Pease or New Haven which last I checked were doing quite well with the service they have to leisure destinations. There's almost ZERO market here for business travelers. I think that has been proven with the dismal passenger load numbers that have been posted on this site before. Not to mention, what business traveler is going to use a 5pm flight on Delta to get to NY or a 2pm flight on American to get to NY?? Maybe they should switch to the "less profitable" leisure markets because less profit is better than no profit. I don't think there was ever much of a business market here anyways and Covid has completely changed business travel. Why we need 4 flights to NY a day is baffling. It seems more obvious than ever that the only reason we have any service at ORH is because Jetblue, Delta, and American want to suck up to Massport to get what they want at Logan where all 3 of those airlines are fighting for market share and expansion.
David Z. said…
In response to Clark Griswold, I stand corrected about the runway work.

But even when the work is completed, ORH will be so far behind the other regional airports that it will be very difficult to attract additional carriers and/or service.

And the airlines we do have will be telling MaasPort why their numbers don’t work. As pointed out previously, Worcester is a leisure market and families want point to point service when vacationing.
Anonymous said…
I walk daily by the airport, this afternoon there were less than 30 or so parking spaces available in the lower lot. A TSA officer I know mentioned this week has been the busiest ever.
Anonymous said…
It's busy because it's school vacation week which just further validates the points that ORH is a leisure market and should be targeting service to leisure destinations.
Clark Griswald said…
Glad to David Z agrees with me that Worcester is so far behind the other regionals and I reiterate it wouldn’t be that way if the City had invested more decades ago like those other airports. Invest and they will come. Cat 3 alone brought more airlines and more flights. Imagine what better access would produce. Leisure only is not the solution. There’s got to be a spattering of business markets, including low cost airlines. Look at Avelo out of New Haven. Most are leisure, but the have flights to Chicago and Washington too. And Breeze in PVD. They also go to Norfolk and Charleston. Because of the Navy, Textron, and Electic Boat. So, what business markets would support Worcester,s businesses? Where does Abbvie have other offices, where are other biomedical hubs to support that growing industry, Raleigh? Austin? Where are our college students coming from? That, my friends is what’s needed to be studied and researched, in depth too, not just a silly subjective survey of where people would like to fly. Then, maybe Massport can go to the airlines with hard data. So, come on Worcester, step up and help grow YOUR airport.
IRWT!