ADI, Valley residents must commit to success of flights

Enthusiastic officials of Aerodynamics Inc. flew into town this week brimming with optimism and high hopes for the June 1 launch of the first daily commercial airline service in and out of Greater Youngstown in 14 years. Their enthusiasm should be contagious.

Darrell Richardson, chief executive officer of ADI, other airline officials plus community dignitaries and leaders of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna conducted a press conference on Tuesday to unveil some of the details of the daily service to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

High expectations punctuated their discourse about the service, which culminates a nearly two-year odyssey to make regular flights here a reality. Now it is incumbent upon those officials from ADI, coupled with the firm cooperation of Valley residents and businesses, to ensure those high expectations translate into equally high levels of success.

All have a role to play in guaranteeing that the restoration of daily airline service from the Mahoning Valley to virtually any spot on the globe gets off the ground seamlessly.

Failure cannot be an option as the Valley has suffered more than its fair share of disappointing letdowns in previous efforts to lure daily flights and in a wide variety of other economic-development initiatives over the past few decades.

To sidestep any additional disappointments, firm final planning and a focus on the future are musts as the two-month countdown begins toward a new era of transportation growth that will place the Youngstown-Warren metro area more prominently on the national map.

ADI CEO Richardson was downright buoyant in his cheerful confidence and projections. “We are excited about being your hometown airline,” he told the assembled press and business leaders at the press conference this week.

Mickey Bowman, vice president of airline services for Aerodynamics Inc., chimed in, “It really is about the fact that we have what the community needs.”

We will hold Richardson, Bowman and other ADI leaders to their words and hope that their confidence and perseverance through some turbulent times in securing daily flights will produce service that is timely, dependable, safe and relatively inexpensive for its potential clientele that numbers in the hundreds of thousands in the immediate five-county region.

ABOUT THE NEW SERVICE

Early indicators look promising. ADI is planning 10 flights per week from the newly remodeled terminal at the YNG airport.

Fliers will board 49-seat Embraer ERJ-145 twin-engine jets. The Brazilian-built airliners have a strong safety record and have been used by reputable airliners including American, Continental and Air France. The model boasts of no reported crashes or fatalities due to mechanical malfunction in more than 15 million hours of flight time.

In addition to safety, passengers will place a premium on value. Preliminary one-way ticket prices announced at the press conference this week will range from $99 to as high as $250. Compare that latter figure with the Cleveland to Chicago or Pittsburgh to Chicago one-ways that climb as high as $875.

Convenience ranks as a third major potential selling point for ADI. It should not be terribly difficult, we suspect, to persuade Valley business and pleasure travelers to abandon their long, boring and burdensome drives to Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Akron-Canton for a short jaunt to Vienna. Once there, they’ll find close, thrifty and convenient parking and will bypass the stress of large mobs clawing their way through windng labyrinths of security checks.

For its part, ADI is working to establish as many easy transfers for Youngstown travelers on as many airlines to as many destinations as possible. The greater the options for Valley travelers, the greater the likelihood will be for ADI to thrive and serve as a vital tool to attract more airlines to the airport and more economic development to our region.

Ron Klingle, chairman of the board of the Western Reserve Port Authority that oversees the airport, considers the startup of daily service one of the most important economic-development engines in the Valley over the past two decades.

As air consultant Thomas Reich put it, daily service “helps [businesses] grow, and it helps grow the overall economy.”

That growth, however, now rests in the hands of ADI to deliver on what it has touted and on Valley air travelers to put their dollars and faith in ADI to fuel a triumphant takeoff two months from today.