Massport: Airport Sale Profit Goes Back To Airport
The city should not expect to make any money on the sale of Worcester Airport to Massport.
In fact, the city may find itself putting any proceeds from the sale of the airport right back into the airport's operating budget, according to Ed Freni, Massport's director of aviation. Freni spoke this morning during a panel discussion entitled Getting from Here to There: The Central Mass Transportation Network put on by the Worcester Regional Research Bureau.
The city currently owns the airport and pays about 20 percent of its operating deficit with Massport paying the rest.
Freni said if Massport were to buy the facility, any profits gained by the city in the sale "would be placed back into the airport. Any funds paid to Worcester in the sale would be applied to the operations of the airport." He said the city and Massport could arrange a profit sharing partnership subsequent to the sale.
Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray, who moderated the panel, quipped after Freni's presentation that the city now knows where Massport will begin negotiations around the airport's sale. "I'm sure those negotiations will be tough," Murray said. "They always are."
The money-losing airport, despite the presence of DirectAir, which provides flights between Worcester and Florida, is still vastly underused and being hit by the slumping economy, Freni said. The city's college students do not use the airport in any great numbers and passenger loads on DirectAir flights have been inconsistent.
Freni said DirectAir is a litmus test for other airlines that may be considering serving Worcester. The success of the airport "depends on people using the airport and making airlines feel welcome here," he said.
Other speakers at the event were James Aloisi, state secretary of transportation, Jeffrey Mullan, state undersecretary of transportation and Daniel Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
Mullan said ongoing negotiations between the MBTA and rail giant CSX with regard to increasing passenger rail service between Worcester and Boston still center on CSX's insistence that a "fault" insurance policy apply to the route.
Under that policy, the MBTA would be on the hook for any injuries sustained in a train accident, even if a CSX freight train was at fault.
Mullan said a plan to move CSX's central rail yard from Allston to Central Massachusetts, thus reducing the number of freight trains traveling between Worcester and Boston, could help resolve the liability impasse.
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