January 10, 2007

It’s official. The official Oneida County Airport is now at Griffiss. Hooray!

Griffiss has the designation, but one thing, of course, is missing. What Griffiss and Oneida County needs and deserves is scheduled airline service. We have to go to Onondaga County or Albany County to get on an airliner and here is this beautiful two and one-quarter mile long Griffiss runway, worth million of dollars, just waiting to be used

It reminds you of a similar situation back in the 1950s. The airport in Oriskany had the designation of official Oneida County Airport. As with Griffiss, the airport in Oriskany had long runways and great facilities. What the Oriskany airport didn’t have, though, was scheduled airline service.

Bob Peach changed that. Despite all those who said it couldn’t be done, Peach took charge of something called Robinson Airlines, which had two single engine airplanes flying between Ithaca and New York City, and turned it into Mohawk Airlines, which became a regional airline flying a multi-million dollar jet fleet throughout the northeast.

And he headquartered Mohawk at Oneida County Airport. Then Peach got a huge maintenance hangar built, then a reservations center, then a headquarters building, then a training center, then a hotel to house passengers and employees.

Mohawk eventually became the leading regional airline in the U.S. In fact it was Peach who coined the term regional airline. Mohawk was doing all sorts of innovative things at the Oneida County Airport, things that surprised people in the big cities. After all, this was rural Oneida County.

Those who know their aviation history know that Mohawk eventually became part of what is now US Airways and that US Airways eventually stopped serving the Oneida County Airport.

Enter Paul Quackenbush. Just like Bob Peach, Paul Quackenbush was a pilot and a businessman with vision. He saw the void at the Oneida County Airport and knew what to do. Like Peach before him, Quackenbush started with a couple of small airplanes and a big dream. He called the dream “Empire Airlines.”

“One day we’ll be flying jets,” he told anyone who would listen.

Empire, under Quackenbush’s drive, another trait he shared with Peach, grew Empire and by 1985 it was the second largest regional airline in the country, and it all started at the Oneida County Airport, just like Mohawk.

Mohawk had its BAC-111 jets which made it easy for people in Oneida County to fly anywhere. Empire did the same thing with its Fokker F-28 jets.

Also just like Mohawk, Empire would eventually be taken over by a bigger airline. Empire became part of Piedmont Airlines, which eventually became part of US Airways.

So now we have a new Oneida County Airport, an incredibly great airport. Many - maybe all - of our elected and appointed officials will tell you the reasons why Oneida County isn’t able to have scheduled airline service. What would be better to hear is that one of those officials is developing a plan to get scheduled airline service back at Oneida County’s Airport. It’s easy to find people who can tell you why something can’t be done, not so easy to find people who can figure out how to make something difficult happen.

What we need is a Bob Peach or a Paul Quackenbush.

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Joe Kelly is the editor and publisher of The Boonville Herald & Adirondack Tourist and THE GRIFF.