WRPA seeks to end daily Chicago service

By ED RUNYAN

and KALEA HALL

news@vindy.com

VIENNA

After Wednesday’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.

“What the board is doing is fiscally responsible, and I can’t argue with that,” Bowman said.

Dickten said it may be “up to the lawyers” to determine when the service will end.

The port authority board, at the end of its regular monthly meeting Wednesday, voted to end the revenue guarantee it had been paying to Great Lakes since flights started July 1.

Dickten said the reason for trying to end the service six weeks after it started is because the seats on the 50-seat aircraft were only 31.5 percent full in July and only 24 percent full during the first part of August.

Dickten attributed the low numbers to the failure of Great Lakes’ having an “interline agreement” with United Airlines that would provide a simple way for passengers to book connecting flights from Chicago to other airports.

Dickten said that hang-up apparently “turned a lot of people off.” Evidence of that was the extremely low percentage of passengers continuing on from Chicago to another airport, Dickten said.

Marketing for the service focused heavily on its ability to connect the Mahoning Valley to the world through connecting flights. Such a service was absent from the local airport from 2002 until Great Lakes began in July.

The $1.2 million subsidy was part of the agreement with Great Lakes guaranteeing the airline, also known as Aerodynamics Inc., it would make a profit during the start-up of the service.

During July, the subsidy was $350,000 – two thirds of which comes from a federal grant, the other third coming from Mahoning and Trumbull counties hotel-motel taxes. At that rate, the $1.2 million would be used up in about 60 more days.

“I think there are a lot of people who want [the flights], but they want it in the right way,” Dickten said Wednesday at the airport about the time a 2:30 p.m. Great Lakes flight left as scheduled with a small number of passengers.

Ticket sales started June 1 with interline agreements with United, Delta and American airlines providing efficient ticketing. But United ended its interline and baggage agreement June 12 after it realized that the agreement it had with Great Lakes JetExpress did not apply to the new Chicago service, Dickten said.

That was crucial, he said, because United makes up 60 percent of the airline passengers at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Dickten worked since then to restore the United ticketing without success. The decision to pull the plug on the revenue guarantee was made after it became clear that the interline and baggage agreement with United was “not coming,” Dickten said.

Without the United agreement, booking flights from Chicago on popular websites was difficult, and baggage sometimes went on the wrong plane, Dickten said. Another problem was customers’ having to wait a couple of hours in Chicago to catch a connecting flight, Dickten said.

A port authority news release noted that ticket sales began June 1, two months after originally expected, which prevented the service from fully capitalizing on ticket sales in July, which is typically the busiest month for travel.

The Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber offered its research and internal support to the airport during its work to get a scheduled daily service, and it will continue to do so.

“Obviously, it’s disappointing news but we certainly do understand,” said Sarah Boyarko, senior vice president of the economic-development division at the chamber. “We would continue to work with Dan [Dickten] and the port authority in an effort to explore and secure opportunities in the future.”

The service did better than expected for trips that went only to Chicago, Dickten said. And customers have given the service good reviews, he said.

Sharon, Pa., resident Angela Moneski, who flew Wednesday to her native Chicago with her two children to visit her sister and her sister’s new baby, said the three round-trip flights she booked through Great Lakes were a great deal at $656.

“I was super excited to learn about it,” she said of flights to Chicago from Youngstown. “But if they cancel it, it would be a super bummer because this is so nice.”

She said she enjoyed the short drive to Vienna compared to Pittsburgh and the stress-free experience at the terminal.

Dave Gordon of Solon said he was flying Great Lakes for the first time Wednesday to “give it a try.” He usually flies out of Akron-Canton or Cleveland.

“It’s a shame,” he said of the likelihood that the flights will end soon. “Look how easy it is to get through TSA,” he said of security screening. About 45 minutes before the flight, there were no passengers in line ahead of him.

It took two years for Great Lakes/ADI to receive approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation to operate the service, partly because of a change in leadership at the airline because the U.S. DOT had concerns about the former CEO, Scott Beale, after it was found that he had defrauded a former business associate.

An airport news release says passengers who booked flights with Great Lakes JetExpress are entitled to a full refund, and the airline will contact customers to discuss refunds.

Customers also can get information by calling Great Lakes Airlines at 307-432-7265, or by emailing refunds@flygreatlakes.com.