Trumbull commissioners react to authority pulling support on Chicago flights

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

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 that 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.

Polivka said he was surprised when he learned Great Lakes would be offering 10 flights per week to Chicago and wondered whether there were enough passengers for that many flights.

“I thought two to three days per week would be more sustainable,” Polivka said.

He noted that Allegiant Air, which has been flying leisure flights out of the local airport since 2006, doesn’t fly its routes every day.

Allegiant has two flights per week to Orlando/Sanford, Fla., Myrtle Beach, S.C., and St. Petersburg/Clearwater, Fla. It also had two flights per week to Punta Gorda until earlier this month.

Dickten said the U.S. Department of Transportation grant that paid two-thirds of the cost of the revenue guarantee to Great Lakes required that the flights take place daily.

Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa said he commends the port authority for “going after airlines” and added that “legal action is probably necessary” if the port authority was “deceived in some way” about an agreement Great Lakes said it had with United Airlines.

Commissioner Frank Fuda said it is concerning the port authority paid $350,000 in revenue guarantee money to Great Lakes for July, though he realizes two-thirds of it came from a grant. He also wondered why Great Lakes advertisements in local media are still running.

Dickten said the port authority has asked for the ads to be discontinued, but some are “already paid for and committed.”