04-03-2017, 12:01 PM
(04-03-2017, 11:36 AM)MidTowner Wrote: The folks who complained about noise from the Nolinor flights (whose complaints may have contributed to Nolinor's departure, but probably weren't anything close to the sole reason) are people who live close to the airport, and have a problem with some of the inevitable consequences of that. I wonder if they're all opposed to airport expansion? I bet not, when it would come to flights that would be useful to them.
I think that Viewfromthe42's "people who don't want to see any expansion" are probably pretty numerous. I talk to a lot of people who feel about the airport, when they consider it at all, that it is unlikely to ever attract service that will be useful to them, that the money that has invested in it so far has not paid off, and that expanding it is pointless.
Nolinor definitely had a larger than usual group of people complaining about it. I don't feel particularly strongly about it (although I generally go with 'if you live near an airport, expect noise' philosophy), because it was extra burdensome on residents and didn't really offer local benefits aside from money (as opposed to commercial flights which bring extra benefits to the area).
And I think we need to distinguish between people that don't want to see changes "right now" from those that don't want to see it at all. I'd love to see the airport become successful and offer all sorts of different flights. But I don't want to see significant changes w/o a real clear immediate benefit. Because as far as I can see everything is in place to offer a really good service to a new customer airline. But the overall economics just don't seem to make sense right now for airlines.