Waves of prosperity will soon wash over our area like a tsunami in Asia, all because we the taxpayers have dumped 41.5 million dollars in to the sky port. At least that’s what the big wheels at the airport are hoping, wishing for. Of course the airport guys never met my father who used to say wish in one hand and go to the bathroom in the other and see what you have. He said it sort of like that anyway.
Boy I sure hope it does crank up the local economy. It sure isn’t working so well now. So far in 2006 the airport has been like an albatross around our necks. The dead loss so far this year? Near 70 thousand bucks. That’s more than a quarter of a million dollars a year if it continues to bleed money at the current rate.
If we lose that much money for 160 years then we will have lost as much as it took to build the Wilkes-Barre international airport and school of truck driving.
But the wise wheels at the Wilkes-Barre international airport bar and grill and art display have chosen a particularly auspicious time to open the doors on the grand new aviation palace. Gas prices and that’s what those jet airplanes guzzle, are climbing faster than the space shuttle in launch mode.
Inflation is killing all of us, people are terrified to fly after 9/11 and we have seen at least two alleged airlines go belly up after a few flights in and out of the Wilkes-Barre international house of pancakes and Aviation.
I have talked to some pilots who fly into and out of our little local airport. Oddly enough from the pilots perspective the terminal was the least of the problem here. They were more concerned about vectors and short runways and such. I bet if you asked a pilot what 41 million bucks should have been spent on he might have mentioned that fact that the control tower and associated radar and communications devices have been around since Lucky Lindy landed  the Sprit of St Louis in a field in our area in ought 27.
Ok I exaggerate. A little. But when you have spent 1.2 Million dollars on the front door to the joint, don’t you think a little money could have thrown into pothole patching on the runways?
