Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 22, 1990 TAG: 9006220778
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There are magnet schools; officials think Eastern can be a magnet airline for the local airdrome. The hope is that other major carriers, such as American and Delta, will join USAir and Eastern in offering jet service.
Starting Sept. 6, Eastern's three flights will allow Roanoke passengers an 87-minute connection to bustling Atlanta - where, goes the story, even travelers to the afterlife must change planes.
Not only Eastern seems to believe there's a budding market for flights between here and the Southern metropolis: ASA, Delta's commuter line, recently stepped up its Roanoke-Atlanta schedule from six to seven flights.
Meanwhile, USAir service from the airport is much improved - quite reliable now - and that carrier is trying hard to respond to local needs. United Express offers service to Chicago, from which the world is within reach.
If things are looking up at the airport, still it's important to note that such developments aren't driven by wishes or intentions, however benign. They're driven by the market.
Eastern is introducing its service not because it wants to be nice to Roanoke, though its decision is surely nice. Nor is Eastern offering service because the Regional Airport Commission asked Eastern to - though the commission's efforts to woo Eastern and other airlines have been as crucial as they are commendable.
Eastern is bringing jet service to Roanoke because Eastern believes it will make money by doing so. That's a vote of confidence in the region's economy, but also a reminder that if the airline doesn't make money here - if not enough people use the flights - then the service will just as surely be taken back.
USAir wasn't insulting Lynchburg when it declined last week to offer jet service to the airport Lynchburg is building. It was a business decision, even if Lynchburg's economy will suffer the consequences.
That's not to say a community can't do a lot to encourage favorable business decisions. For the Roanoke Valley, the new airport marked a crucial injection of wisdom and vision into local economic development efforts. Wisdom and vision were lacking some years ago when this region failed to compete with Charlotte for the installation of a major Piedmont (now USAir) hub airport.
Eastern's trip to Roanoke has been bumpy at times, too, but the airline has had a long and frequently proud history. No stranger to financial struggles, it was fighting the Depression back when Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker's "Great Silver Fleet" (unpainted, that is, to save weight and costs) flew into an Atlanta airport no bigger than is Roanoke's today.
Under former astronaut Frank Borman, who became chairman in 1970, the airline bought new aircraft and expanded its routes. But with labor troubles and the advent of deregulation in 1978, Eastern began encountering stormy weather long before the 1986 takeover by Texas Air. Matters worsened under the leadership of Frank Lorenzo, who seems to have been cordially disliked by most of his employees.
Now Lorenzo is gone, replaced by a court-appointed trustee whose mission, said the bankruptcy judge, is not to liquidate but to operate the airline.
The company is battling back, looking for new business. It has given the Roanoke market its vote of confidence. Let's hope the market will justify Eastern's move.
VIRGINIANS, according to a recent poll, want limits on growth. A hefty 57 percent of respondents to the survey (sponsored by the Piedmont Environmental Council) said they thought the rate of growth in their areas is too fast or much too fast.
But this poll was unfair. There are naturally more people - thus more survey respondents - where growth problems exist. The solution: Send some of that business, concentrated elsewhere in the state, down Southwest Virginia's way.
by CNB