Providence Senator Calls For Review Of RI Airport Corporation

WARWICK, RI — A Providence Senator is calling for a review of the Rhode Island Airport Corporation's management after Norwegian Air announced it will no longer fly out of T.F. Green Airport.

The airline has offered direct flights from Rhode Island to Dublin, Ireland for just two years. On August 13, the company announced plans to suspend service, citing ongoing troubles surrounding Boeing 737 MAX airplanes.

"Norwegian Air leaving T.F. Green after only two years of operations raises further questions about the choices made by the Airport Corporation management team," Senator Sam Bell said. "The Airport Corporation spent more than $2 million to advertise for Norwegian Air, and now those jobs are disappearing after only two years."

Bell continued that the airline should never have come to Rhode Island in the first place.

"At the time, Hillary Clinton had taken the extraordinary step of calling for not letting this airline operate in our country because of their exceptionally poor labor practices," the Providence Democrat said. "I believe that Hillary Clinton was right, and we should have listened to her warnings about this unscrupulous corporation."

This is not the only issue to plague the airport in recent months, Bell added. In May, Sun Country Airlines announced seasonal nonstop service to Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, starting in November. Since then, the service has been quietly removed from the airline's listed offerings.

"The Norwegian Airlines debacle follows the collapse of the Dominican Republic route from Sun Country Airlines before a single plane took off from T.F. Green," Bell said. "Like Norwegian, Sun Country is a controversial airline, and these problems were predictable. At the time the agreement with T.F. Green began, Sun Country was reeling from an international flight cancellation scandal where hundreds of passengers were stranded in Mexico with no way to return to Minnesota."

The airport was also hit hard by recent disagreements with Uber and Lyft over fees, leading to service disruptions and headaches for travelers.

"These problems are serious. I have significant doubts about the way the Airport Corporation management is operating T.F. Green, and I believe a management performance review is warranted," Bell continued. "I have neighbors who have lost their jobs, and airport visitors are continuously frustrated, whether by the disruption to ride-sharing services or by highly publicized routes being eliminated shortly after being introduced. It is evident that T.F. Green is experiencing several problems. I hope that a review of management performance will help lead to reforms and improved outcomes."

In a statement, the airport corporation said that it has increased the number of nonstop routes from 17 to 27 in just three years, a 158 percent increase in connectivity since 2016. The increase is particularly impressive, the statement said, compared with the 40 percent loss of business from 2005 to 2015.

According to the corporation, T.F. Green had greater passenger growth than both Logan Airport and the U.S. average over the past three years.

"The loss of Norwegian and Punta Cana is due to extraneous circumstances. The security conditions in Punta Cana and Max8 issues, as widely reported in the media, are out of RIAC’s control," the statement read in part. "As for RIAC's financial condition, Standard & Poor’s conducted an independent review in December 2018. S&P upgraded its ratings on both the General Airport Revenue Bonds and the Special Facility Bonds for the InterLink to ‘A’ from ‘BBB+’ (two notches) with Stable outlooks."

S&P praised "strong management and governance with a good track record of operating the major lines of business and managing risk, as evidenced by improving financial performance, conservative budgeting, and meeting financial targets," the statement continued, as well as both strong debt and liabilities capacity and strong liquidity and financial flexibility.