Business at Worcester Regional Airport has been declining rapidly in the past several years.
Worcester Regional Airport does not appear to be taking off.
Less than a month after the city failed to get a single response from a Request for Proposals to develop a portion of the 1,300-acre failed airport, the city will try again when it releases a second RFP today for a slightly larger parcel to accommodate services for corporate jets.
“We are hopeful and very realistic,” said Julie Jacobson, Worcester’s assistant city manager. “Our strategy is to continue to recruit airlines while the RFP could bring a new hangar that would attract additional corporate planes and offer repair and refueling services, a pilots’ lounge and a restaurant.”
Since the airport’s heyday in the 1980s, when more than a dozen flights departed daily, it has steadily lost service. The first RFP issued in November followed the departure of the last commercial airline at the hard-to-reach central Massachusetts airfield. Last year, Allegiant Air scrapped a five-year deal with the city after just nine months. The Las Vegas carrier’s president said Worcester was not profitable, making Allegiant the 13th airline in 18 years to bail out.
A recent study by the New Jersey-based Louis Berger Group found that by 2020, Worcester could handle nearly 300,000 passengers annually with a potential of 1.5 million passengers in the region. But ridership has been plummeting at steady pace. The number of fliers fell to 1,729 in 2005, down from 129,780 in 2001, the study said. By comparison, 5.7 million passengers who flew out of T.F. Green International Airport in Warwick, R.I. – which is a short distance from Rhode Island’s capital city of Providence – in 2005.
Lowell Richards, chief development officer at the Massachusetts Port Authority, the agency that operates Worcester Regional Airport, said 9/11 had a devastating impact on the airline industry and regional airports saw operations dwindle in the wake of a declining economy.
But he said Worcester is poised to make a comeback given the growth of the high-tech and biotechnology migrating west to take advantage of lower land and housing costs. “Worcester is the logical choice, given its location,” Richards said.
Still, he added that the lack of easy access to the airport that is located on a hill in a residential neighborhood is a serious problem. He suggested that a new east-west road connection not only would increase the airport’s accessibility but also could create a development corridor that would boost the city’s economy.
The Berger Group study found that a 10-minute reduction in access time from Interstate 290 could increase passengers by 39 percent or 110,000. The study also found that the airport’s infrastructure needs improvements including the rehabilitation of aging runway and taxi pavements, as well as non-aviation projects such as improved roadway access, signs and wider roads leading to the airport.
‘Real Value’
As officials scramble to attract commercial carries in the short run, Richards said, the latest RFP due on April 30 could attract a provider of light mechanical servicing, fueling, catering and a place for pilots to sleep, shower and store aircrafts.
“As the second-largest city in the region, we think there is real value to the Greater Worcester economy by providing robust general aviation activity there,” Richards said. “Worcester it is located at the crossroads of very good interstate road systems that serve New England, so it’s well positioned. There are reasons to be optimistic in a five- to 10-year timeframe. But it’s unhealthy for anyone to think that it will result in major economic improvements in the next 18 months to 36 months. Economies don’t turn around that quickly.”
Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray, a former Worcester mayor, said the Cellucci and Swift administrations had the right idea when they convinced Massport to use their leverage at Logan International Airport in Boston to convince carriers to commit to Worcester.
“[Former Gov. Paul] Cellucci and [former acting Gov. Jane] Swift had face-to-face conversations with carriers and told them, ‘If you want gates at Logan, we want you at Worcester,'” Murray recalled. “They held the airlines in abeyance because they believed that if you can get affordable carriers going to places where people want to go regardless of the road network to the airport, passengers will find a way to Worcester Airport.”
Murray is convinced that under the leadership of Gov. Deval Patrick and Massport Executive Director Thomas J. Kinton Jr., a new partnership will flourish and carriers will follow. “You need Massport at the highest levels to work with the city to sell the airport,” he said. “The studies in the post-9/11 era say that the capacity at Logan, T.F. Green, Manchester [International Airport in New Hampshire] and Bradley [International Airport in Connecticut] will be maxed out in the next 10 years. Where else can passengers go but Worcester? No one is building airports anymore.”
Worcester Mayor Konstantina B. Lukes said she is unsure about the future of the airport if the latest RFP fails to attract uses consistent with boosting the operation of the private carriers.
“We can’t close the airport and turn it into a mixed-use subdivision because we have accepted as much as $10 million in state and federal grants on the condition that the facility operates,” she said. “We would have to pay the money back, plus a portion of any revenues from new uses. We’re in no position to do that.”
Eric Kollios, a dispatch supervisor at Worcester Airport Limousine, said the company’s vehicles rarely go to the airport anymore. He noted that with the exception of a few car rental companies, there is very little activity at the airport.
Kollios, who said he was not speaking for the West Boylston company where he has worked for 13 years, noted that there are four major airports within 90 miles’ driving distance: Logan, Manchester, T.F. Green and Bradley.
“They all have all convenient access off major highways,” he said. “Worcester doesn’t and it also suffers from inferior landing systems.”
Stephen R. Karp, chairman and chief executive officer New England Development, a Newton-based developer that has built retail centers at airports nationwide, said Worcester Airport will never realize its potential until there’s a direct connection from the Massachusetts Turnpike or I-290.
“People get frustrated trying to get to Worcester Airport and would rather drive instead to Providence or Manchester, N.H.,” he said. “The other problem that Worcester can’t solve is the airport is built on a hill and when weather conditions are poor, as they frequently are out there, planes can’t fly. Let’s face it, if people have a choice they would rather go to Logan, Providence or Manchester.”
