Trumbull commissioner says his experience on Great Lakes to Chicago positive

WARREN

Trumbull County Commissioner Dan Polivka says the two flights he took on Great Lakes JetExpress between the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and Chicago did not reveal the flaws in the service airline officials discussed last week.

“It was a good service to Chicago,” he said.

But he believes the board of directors of the Western Reserve Port Authority will make the right decisions about what to do about the problems encountered by passengers trying to make a connecting flight in Chicago to another destination.

“I have faith in the port authority board,” Polivka said. “I think they just have to review everything. Maybe it will make them wiser in the future.”

The port authority board announced last week it would no longer pay Great Lakes the revenue guarantee it offered the company, but it also acknowledged it would be up to Great Lakes to decide when to stop the flights.

Dan Dickten, airport aviation director, said last week a big reason for pulling the plug on the revenue guarantee was because Great Lakes guaranteed in writing that it had an interline agreement with United Airlines that allowed Great Lakes customers to use the United Airlines booking system to arrange connecting flights from Chicago.

Great Lakes customers were able to use the United booking system the first 11 days of June. But United said June 12 the interline agreement didn’t cover the Youngstown-Chicago flights and stopped allowing Great Lakes customers to use it, Dickten said.

That made booking connecting flights difficult and greatly affected the number of passengers who used the service, Dickten said.

Read more about the situation in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.