Photo | Brad Kane
The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce held its annual meeting on Friday, where CEO Lisa Wieland from Massport was the keynote speaker.
December 6, 2019
Massport working to fill Worcester airplanes
Photo | Brad Kane
Lisa Wieland became CEO and executive director of Massport in 2019.
As the Massachusetts Port Authority looks to grow the viability and impact of the Worcester Regional Airport, the authority's CEO said a key will be making sure the current flights are flying at closer to capacity.
"We still need to fill the planes. That is priority No. 1," said Lisa Wieland, CEO and executive director of Massport. "Once we can demonstrate we can fill all these flights, then more will follow."
Wieland made the comments on Friday afternoon following her presentation at the annual meeting of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce at the DCU Center. During her keynote, Wieland highlighted everything Massport had done since the authority took ownership of the airport from the city in 2010, which has included investing more than $100 million.
Since that 2010 ownership change, more than 750,000 passengers have flown on commercial flights out of Worcester, she said. The authority expects to crack the 800,000 milestone this year, with 200,000 passengers using the airport in 2019 alone.
Three commercial airlines fly out of Worcester airport:
- JetBlue Airways, with flights to Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and New York City
- Delta Air Lines, with flights to Detroit
- American Airlines, with flights to Philadelphia
In order to fill those flights and potentially add more flights and airlines, Wieland said, Massport started a $300,000 marketing campaign for the Worcester airport in March.
In addition to trying to expand the geographic footprint of communities where people use the airport regularly, the authority is targeting the Latin-American community and students at colleges and universities in Greater Worcester.
To entice the Latin-American community, the outreach has included attending events, Wieland said. For the college students, marketing efforts include contests and advertisements in school newspapers.
"We need people to think about starting to use the Worcester airport," Wieland said.
Wieland was named the permanent CEO of Massport in June. Immediately before that, she was the Massport port director, in charge of all maritime operations.
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Anonymous
December 9, 2019
Flights out of Worcester, to Orlando via JetBlue are TWICE the cost on average than they are flying out of Boston's Logan. And getting to Logan via mass transit is easy. Want more people to fly out of Worcester? <ake the flights cheaper.
Anonymous
December 7, 2019
Keeping my fingers crossed for flights to Tampa or Clearwater/St. Pete. There are a lot of Worcester County people who travel to Clearwater/Tampa/Sarasota area.
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