ORH to Close

[diogenes]

That didn't take too long, did it?

Doesn't sound like attrition does it?

Didn't the company say they had no plans to furlough agents or close stations as a result of the new agreement? (you had to be paying close attention to know they could do it under the old agreement) Didn't the union 'leadership' pitch the attrition line, too? And who called bulls**t?

How now?

And, now it begins.

 

[W:EXCH:INVOL]

www.boston.com/dailynews/022/economy/US_Airways_departure_leaves_Wo:.shtml
No more station closures, huh?
INVOL

 

[W:EXCH:INVOL]

My bad--CSG, too.

INVOL

 

[tadjr]

Since ORH and CSG were both Express stations only, they kinda kept their word. No one at mainline will be affected with these closings.

 

[FM2436]

Whats interesting is if USAirways is going to become more like the darling of the airline industry (Southwest), USAirways would need to drop service at 142 other airports.

US Airways flies to 201 airports (minus Worcester and Columbus GA).

Southwest flies to only 59 airports.

 

[diogenes]

I stand corrected

 

[DLFlyer31]

ORH is surrounded by BOS,BDL,PVD and MHT all of which offer a lot more service and all of which have low-fare carriers. Why get stuck in a prop to PHL when there's lots of jet service (at better fares, too) at nearby airports?

To be fair, AA and DL also pulled out last year. DL rarely pulls of out RJ markets. So when DL does pull RJ's out of a market, you know there has to be something seriously wrong. ORH had the potential to be a good reliever for BOS, but the airport needs to become far more passenger and airline friendly which the folks in ORH were not willing to do.

As for CSG, you've got a similar problem. Most in CSG are just driving to ATL for the better selection and fares. NW pulled out about a year(?) ago, which leaves only DL in CSG. DL still runs a good amount of capacity through CSG (a 250+ seats a day), but once all the props are retired, I'm not sure what DL will do with CSG.

 

[wings396]

I know that PI flew into ORH with mainline years ago using the F-28 I believe. I have a friend that worked for DL and they also served ORH with mainline from the old NE system. From what he told me ORH is subject to a lot of WX problems with fog being the main one. This could have played a part in this decision also...

 

[sfb]

Another big problem with ORH is highway access; it's a real pain to drive to the airport unless you're actually in Worcester to start with. Plans to improve access from the Mass Pike/I-290 were scuttled by community opposition, and most people don't want to spend 15-20 minutes driving through congested Worcester city streets (it's about 5 miles, max speed limit 30, with traffic lights) to get to the airport. When you add in the fact that PVD is less than 50 miles away (and only 20-30 minutes more drive time), with better fares and many more flights, it's pretty obvious why ORH would be hurting. ORH also has a bit of a geography problem, as others have mentioned; it's surrounded on all four sides by BOS, PVD, BDL, and MHT, all of which are roughly an hour away and which cut into ORH's potential catchment area.

As for CSG, I flew CSG-CLT back in February, 2000 -- a good 2 hours on a J31. Probably one of the more uncomfortable flights I've ever taken. I see it's been upgraded to a Dash-8, but it's still an hour-and-a-half on a turboprop. Not very appealing to most travelers, especially with the big DL hub a bit over an hour away. CSG probably sees some spill to BHM as well.

 

[ITRADE]

Here's the application:[BR][BR][A href="http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf84/212962_web.pdf"]http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf84/212962_web.pdf[/A]