
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 19, 1991                   TAG: 9102190405
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

AIR WISCONSIN'S FLIGHTS FORGOTTEN

ROANOKE County Supervisor Bob Johnson is quoted in your Jan. 31 news story as saying, "The problem is, our Metropolitan Statistical Area isn't big enough to get direct flights to LaGuardia [in New York] or O'Hare [in Chicago]. It's a matter of economics . . . "

As vice chairman of the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission, Johnson should have known that Air Wisconsin, flying under a marketing arrangement as United Express, provides three non-stop (therefore direct) jet flights to O'Hare and two non-stop jet flights from O'Hare most every day. Air Wisconsin should be praised and supported for filling that void. Instead, it is forgotten or ignored.

Other members of the Airport Commission have rated the quality of air service in Roanoke as good, measured principally by the number of flights available on USAir. If they think that having to go through Charlotte for the vast majority of USAir flights is good air service, then perhaps Roanoke needs new commissioners as badly as it needs additional carriers.

As for the new airport, what's not to like? TIM WERBER ROANOKE

by CNB