Port authority should ask feds to join in ADI lawsuit

Nine months after we urged the U.S. Department of Transportation to investigate the demise of daily air service out of Youngstown, the Western Reserve Port Authority has sued Aerodynamics Inc., the airline operating company.

In the lawsuit filed in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, the authority seeks the return of $361,714 paid to ADI as a revenue guarantee. The money came out of a $1.2 million fund created by the governing body of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport to attract commercial air service.

Two-thirds of the fund – $780,000 – came from the federal transportation department’s Small Community Air Service Development Program grant. The balance – $420,000 – is from revenue generated by hotel-motel taxes in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. As we said in the editorial in August 2016 after Great Lakes JetExpress, operated by ADI, discontinued the Youngstown service after just a month, the expenditure of tax dollars demands a full airing.

We called on the U.S. DOT to launch an investigation because federal money was used to provide the revenue guarantee. Unfortunately, the agency has failed to act.

But now, with WRPA’s lawsuit against ADI, the federal govern- ment has the chance to get involved.

The Vindicator has long advocated commercial air service for the Valley and, therefore, gladly joined the cheering section. Great Lakes JetExpress’ round-trip flights from Youngstown-Warren to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport began July 1. It had been 14 years since the region had daily commercial air service.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Mickey Bowman, chief operating officer of Aerodynamics Inc., as he boarded the first flight. “I want to thank everyone. Hopefully, the community is as excited as we are.”

Yes, the community, by and large, was excited. But that excitement turned to despair when passengers from Youngstown found out in Chicago that their baggage was not being handled by American Airlines and United Airlines, as they had been led to believe.

Indeed, members of the port authority and Dan Dickten, director of aviation, were told by ADI, in writing and orally, the company had an interline agreement with American and United.

The agreement would have required the two major carriers to handle baggage for the commuter airline. ADI would have been required to do the same for American and United.

BREACH OF CONTRACT CLAIMED

In the lawsuit seeking repayment of the $361,714, the WRPA claims that ADI breached its contract and committed fraud, negligent misrepresentation and fraudulent misrepresentation.

The suit says that when airport officials learned there was no interline agreement, ADI tried to correct the problem but ultimately failed to do so.

As a result, the authority stopped paying the revenue guarantee, and ADI ended its flights from and to Youngstown.

However, it had pocketed more than $300,000 in public funds by then.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that we, along with many business and community leaders, were deeply disappointed with the outcome. After all, Dickten had spent countless hours setting the stage for the inaugural flight in July.

In addition, a survey conducted of local businesses determined Chicago was the top destination for them.

Finally, the authority is being advised by Tom Reich, director of air service development at AvPorts, a consulting service for airports.

Reich was brought on in 2010 to develop new service at Youngstown-Warren Regional. About his company’s role, he said, “We act as an airport lawyer in the courtroom of airline opinion.”

But while it seemed all the building blocks for daily commercial air service were in place, The Vindicator did have some advice for the port authority.

We urged YNG leaders to press hard for convenient takeoff and landing times and for airfares comparable to those at larger hub airports in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Akron-Canton. And, we noted that agreements needed to be reached with other major carriers to ensure passengers from YNG to Chicago could make direct hassle-free connections.

It turns out our concerns were warranted.

The lawsuit filed by the port authority to recover the money paid to ADI should answer many of the questions that have arisen since the end of daily air service.

The participation of the U.S. DOT would lend legal heft to the lawsuit.