REGIONAL AIRPORT Get out of town! Vacationers snap up low-cost resort flights

Valley response to the service has been strong.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
VIENNA -- More than 3,200 one-way tickets have been sold for flights to Florida and South Carolina scheduled to begin April 1 from the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.
"The first flights are booking well," said A. Cary Evans, executive vice president of FlightServ, parent to flight operator Vacation Express. "I think we are off to a great start."
New air routes to Sanford, Fla., outside Orlando, and Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Vacation Express were officially announced at a press conference three weeks ago. Reservations are being accepted for departures through the end of the year.
One-way ticket prices range from $69 to $89.
"People are definitely excited about the price," said Pam Baker, owner of Four Star Travel in Cortland. "I did $158 for round-trip over Easter to Orlando. It is wild."
The round-trip price turned out to be at least $60 less than flights from other regional airports, said Dennis Lewis of Cortland. But that wasn't the reason he decided to fly out of Vienna for a planned Disney World vacation with his wife, mother-in-law and two children.
"I wanted to keep my money in the community and support the community," Lewis said.
Advertising
Since the flights were announced three weeks ago, the Western Reserve Port Authority, which runs the airport, placed ads to publicize the service in newspapers covering the Sharon area and Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties.
"This has been a fantastic response to a new program," said William Kelly, a member of the port authority board, which runs the airport. "We are going to do everything we can to keep the response coming in."
ClearChannel Radio Youngstown, where Kelly is an executive, has donated air time to promote the service, said airport director Steve Bowser. Television advertisements are also planned.
So far, advertising expenditures have been about $6,000, Bowser said.
siff@vindy.com