Projo Biz Blog

Kevin Dillon, who is struggling to keep passengers flying at T.F. Green Airport, will discuss the airport's challenges tomorrow at a meeting with Governor Carcieri's top economic advisers.

Dillon, hired by the Rhode Island Airport Corporation board a year ago, inherited a slumping operation. Before his arrival, the airport "suffered a revenue drop for the first time this decade, brought about by a 9-percent decline in passengers," The Providence Journal reported.

The recession has not helped. Passenger traffic dropped 10 percent in January, Providence Journal reporter Paul Edward Parker reported. Now, Southwest Airlines, the dominant carrier at Green Airport, plans to start flying out of Boston, a development that Providence Journal editor John Kostrzewa, in a recent column, called a "cause for concern."

The airport is not the only topic to be discussed at tomorrow's Economic Policy Council meeting, at 10 a.m. at 315 Iron Horse Way in Providence. The governor's advisers will also hear a report about the Community College of Rhode Island and a presentation from the COO of Deepwater Wind Holdings, the New Jersey company that plans to construct a $1.5-billion wind farm off Rhode Island's coast. Read the full agenda here.

 Tags  airlines airport alternative energy Community College of Rhode Island Deepwater Wind economic development Economic Policy Council economy Governor Donald L. Carcieri politics recession Southwest Airlines T.F. Green Airport wind energy wind turbine

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