I am a huge supporter of Worcester Airport and feel that in ten years, you will be amazed to see what ORH will become. That said, I am not a blind supporter or “yes man”. In fact I warned people not to fly Direct Airlines and went so far as to predict in November of 2011 that they would be out of business by Ground Hog’s Day of 2012. Click here.
I missed by one month. They ceased operations in March of 2012 and were in Chapter 7 bankruptcy by April of 2012. If we ever have another “Direct Airlines” ORH, I will be the first to say–STAY AWAY! For the record Allegiant Airlines is no “Direct Airlines” and would be a great addition at ORH.
Thursday night, FLL inbound could not land at ORH due to fog. This continued through the day yesterday and no flights came in or out of Worcester due to fog. This morning’s flight went out to Orlando and hopefully we will be back on schedule.
Happy to say that other then the past two days, I can only remember one other time the past two months, flights were diverted due to fog. I think also it was more a question of runway landing lights then fog, but I am not 100% sure?
This will not, however, change my mind to fly out of Worcester nor stop me from recommending JetBlue out of ORH. Is it inconvenient when it happens? Sure, but what is the alternative book out of Boston and create your own planned diversion to Boston in advance?
More importantly this fog problem is being addressed with the planned investment of some $30 million into a new state of the art CAT III Landing System. I write this column today to keep everyone focused on the problem (CAT III) and not the need for an access road, which is a complete waste of time and money.
In ten years, you will not recognize ORH but we will have some bad days from now till then. Yesterday was one of them.
