Wednesday, August 17, 2016
VIENNA
After today’s stunning news that the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport is pulling the plug on the revenue guarantee it is paying to Great Lakes JetExpress for flights to and from Chicago, airport officials are left with a serious question.
Will it be as hard to get the flights stopped as it was getting them started?
Dan Dickten, aviation director at the airport, said the Western Reserve Port Authority, which runs the airport, would like the flights to stop as soon as possible. That’s because the longer the flights continue, the more revenue-guarantee money the airport will have to pay to the airline.
Mickey Bowman, senior vice president and chief operating officer for the airline, said the Great Lakes contract says that if either party wants to terminate the service, the other party must be notified no less than 90 days before the service ends.
But he is going to try to terminate the service as quickly as possible, Bowman said, noting that there is work involved in ending other contracts Great Lakes has in place to operate the service.
Both Bowman and Dickten acknowledged that it is a great disappointment that the service has not been more successful.
Read what happened in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.