Wednesday, January 28, 2015VIENNA TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Officials with the Western Reserve Port Authority say they’re optimistic that the U.S. Department of Transportation could reverse its recent order issued to Aerodynamics Inc. following the company’s announced change in leadership.
Aerodynamics, or ADI, announced Tuesday that it has named veteran aviation industry executive F. Darrell Richardson as its new CEO, president and chairman. Richardson replaces Scott A. Beale, whose involvement with the carrier is at the heart of an order issued by USDOT last week questioning ADI’s fitness to operate.
ADI officials are “ they’re making some very substantial moves to change how they operate and who runs that organization,” remarked John Moliterno, interim executive director of the Western Reserve Port Authority, which operates Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport. The airport has been working with ADI to establish daily passenger service to Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
“We’re looking at this as a very positive announcement,” Moliterno said.
“We’re very optimistic” the department could reverse its preliminary decision not to award the certificate for the new air service and to suspend the current charter certificate, added Dan Dickten, director of aviation at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport for the port authority.
Richardson “brings instant credibility to ADI,” Dickten said, shortly after a phone conversation with Mickey Bowman, vice president of airline services for ADI. He described Bowman as “very optimistic.”
Richardson retired in 2013 as CEO of Silver Airways, where both he and Bowman worked, Dickten said. “He’s the right guy to take this forward with the Department of Transportation.”
ADI representatives will meet Thursday with Transportation officials in Washington, D.C., according to an email from Bowman.
At the meeting, the two parties will discuss “at what level [Beale] can participate, if any at all,” in the company, and ADI “will do whatever the DOT recommends at that point,” Dickten said. Dickten had initially said the meeting was taking place today following his conversation with Bowman.
Last July, a civil jury found that Beale, who owns an 80% stake in the company that owns ADI, had committed fraud and failed to report the finding. In its order last week, USDOT proposed not only to deny ADI’s application for expanded service, which would have allowed it to provide service between the regional airport and Chicago, but threatened to revoke its existing certification to operate.
“ADI is making the appropriate changes to adapt to the Department of Transportation’s recommendation and we plan and fully intend on working with DOT to try to come up with a successful conclusion that works for all parties,” said ADI spokesman Ryan DiVita. He was unsure Tuesday of the status of Beale’s ownership stake.
The port authority is relying on the Department of Transportation “to continue to vet” ADI and when USDOT officials are comfortable enough to allow it to fly “certainly we’d want additional conversations … about flying out of our airport,” Moliterno said.
ADI officials have offered to visit Youngstown-Warren in the next three to 10 days “to chat with us about where they’re going with the airline service,” Dickten said. Hopefully USDOT will reverse its earlier order “and it may still require another show-cause period after there’s been a decision made to reverse the previous show cause order. But we think it’s back on the right track,” he added.
Copyright 2015 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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