Dickten Seeks Daily Flights Under the Holiday Tree
VIENNA TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Holiday travelers could be home for the holidays via connecting service from a midwestern hub airport to the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, aviation director Dan Dickten says.
The airport is awaiting word from the U.S. Department of Transportation on a show-cause order for Aerodynamics Inc., the proposed operator of the air service that would provide that connecting service. The company has applied to DOT to upgrade its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to include the operation of scheduled air service between the regional airport and a major airline hub to be announced, Dickten said.
“We hope to have an announcement for you in the very near future and hopefully air service taking off here before the holiday season,” he said.
“People are making their travel arrangements right now. The sooner we can get the approval from the Department of Transportation, our airport could be one of the options that they have,” said Ron Klingle, chairman of the Western Reserve Port Authority, which operates the airport. If a decision takes a couple more weeks “we could miss out” on that holiday travel season, he warned.
At its meeting this morning, the port authority board of directors passed a motion approving the dairline route and connecting hub destination, and authorizing Dickten to make a joint announcement at the airport terminal, contingent on DOT’s approval of the route and the airline’s concurrence on the timing to make such an announcement.
The destination can’t be disclosed, under DOT restrictions, until the show-cause order is received, which Dickten hopes will be in the next few days.
“We were very far along with Detroit in our conversations, so that’s the destination at the time that we used” in the DOT application, he said. “Since that time, we’ve made more progress with another Midwest connecting hub airport that we feel would be better received by the community, and we have been pressing forward with that.”
The airport will request the destination change at the time the certification is approved, he explained.
Aerodynamics Inc. is a “nationally renowned” carrier with interline agreements with airlines including Alaska, American, Delta and US Airways. “We’ll be able to interline agree and connect with flights from five different airlines, which in our opinion is much better,” Dickten said. “This should actually connect the community with the world.”
Fares will be competitive with competing airports in the region, which Dickten says are becoming less attractive as they offer fewer direct flights to destinations. “That’s one thing we have going for us,” he said.
Service likely would start with two round-trip flights serving the hub airport on the busiest days -- Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday -- and a single round-trip flight on the remaining days, Dickten reported. The goal is to build service to three round-trip flights within a year.
The prospect of establishing daily service at the airport -- which it has lacked for better than a decade -- is “very exciting,” Klingle said.
Dickten reported that for the first time since 1997 passenger count for the airport exceeded 100,000 in September, a 46% increase over 2013 for the year so far. Last month the passenger total was 6,515.
Additionally, Sarah Lown, senior manager for economic development, told directors that she is working with the city of Youngstown to establish a PACE – Property Assessed Clean Energy – District. She informed board members that three projects in the downtown are being discussed that would take advantage of the district, as well as a project with Youngstown Thermal and an additional new construction project “that needs to do some advanced technology,” she said.
“The question is what is the footprint of that energy district. That’s something we’ll work with city hall to determine,” Lown said. She said she hopes to have the district in place by the start of the 2015 construction season.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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