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Northeast Ohio's New Regional Air Service Comes to an Abrupt End

Flight path available from Youngstown-Warren Regonal
Western Reserve Port Authroity
Flight path available from Youngstown-Warren Regonal

A month ago, Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport saw daily passenger service return for the first time in nearly two decades. ADI, a specialty airline, had gotten approval to fly to Chicago’s O’Hare International. 

But today, the regional airport owner, theWestern Reserve Port Authority, which had been subsidizing a trial period for the daily service, decided it could no longer do so.

John Moltinero
Credit Western Reserve Port Authority
/
Western Reserve Port Authority
John Moltinero

JohnMoltinerois executive director of the authority.

“We all put our best foot forward, and it simply didn’t work out the way would like it to have worked out.  Connectivity to sites and destinations past Chicago became the problem.  The ridership wasn’t there. It wasn’t going back and forth to Chicago; that worked out fine.  It was going past Chicago.”

Moltinerosays the Port Authority still believes the airport can sustain daily service and will keep searching for an approach that works. 

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Tim Rudell
Tim Rudell has worked in broadcasting and news since his student days at Kent State in the late 1960s and early 1970s (when he earned extra money as a stringer for UPI). He began full time in radio news in 1972 in his home town of Canton, OH.