Port Authority nears hiring a consultant

Such a company could help market the airport to
airlines.

VIENNA — Members of the Western Reserve Port Authority may be ready next month to select a consulting company to help them secure a regional airline to operate at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.

Steve Bowser, the airport’s director of aviation, said he has received proposals from two such companies and is expecting to receive two more. So far, the companies are quoting prices in the $30,000 to $50,000 price range.

One of the companies, Landrum & Brown of Cincinnati, has assisted the port authority in the past, helping to attract the leisure airline Allegiant to the airport in May 2006 and helping with the grant application to the Federal Aviation Administration that led to a $575,000 FAA grant award. Receipt of that grant should be finalized in January, Bowser said.

One value of such a consulting company is that they have access to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics and can interpret them in ways that have credibility with airlines, Bowser said.

Armed with such information, such a company can also help market the airport to airlines, Bowser said.

Bowser says the airport needs an airline that would offer flights three to five times per day to a hub such as Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Columbus; or Cincinnati. Such service would restore much-needed activity to the airport to encourage local businesses to remain here, Bowser said.

Currently the airport offers flights twice per week to Orlando through Allegiant and charter flights to Atlantic City. Most other activity at the airport is on smaller, privately owned aircraft.

In other business at the port authority’s meeting Wednesday, Bowser said bankruptcy proceedings for ReadyAir, a former fuel handler and service provider at the airport, should be finalized in January.

Bowser said he expects the proceedings to result in payment of about $30,000 of the $48,000 ReadyAir owes the port authority in fees and rents.