Today, when I read that Concourse C at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport was closing, I hoped to holy high bejeepers that this wasn't the multimillion-dollar concourse that had just opened in the '90s.
I remembered that around 1994, The Last Word seriously questioned the fact that Delta was spending some $20,000,000 on a new concourse that was long on form and short on substance. Despite this expense, the doors frequently malfunctioned, causing a passenger to get bopped in the nose. But that was just a side plot to the airline's garish display of extravagance.
When I read about the closing of a concourse today, my heart sank when I got to the part about the airport "opening it in 1994."
Yep, they closed the same concourse that had been criticized for its cost only a few years ago. Twenty million dollars, down the portable poopot.
Concourse C was used by Comair, a Delta subsidiary. When the concourse opened, the local media (which always seems to have a booster's view favoring corporate excess) thought it was the greatest thing since poop knives. But now it's gone. It's closing up. Probably never to be used again.
You expect a concourse - especially one that cost $20,000,000 - to last more than 14 years. It's possible for buildings to stand for 200 years and be almost like new - so expensive concourses should at least last more than 14.
Talk about waste in the corporate world!
Part of the sticker shock derived from the fact that there was so much poverty locally. And there still is. Cincinnati - which was America's epicenter of corporatism in the '80s and '90s - still ranks as one of America's poorest big cities, because of this ideology of money worship. According to new census figures, an astounding 23.5% of the city's population lives in absolute poverty.
Under corporatism, money flows away from the average person - and to powerful corporations that squander it on concourses that they abandon after a few years. No wonder there's such a big gap between the rich and the poor.
(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=866368b6-cffa-44cc-94dc-a0ff873f1fa2)
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Delta wastes concourse
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You just like to complain Tim. Delta wasn't going to give the money it was paying to rent that concourse to the poor anyway, so you what do you care?
ReplyDeleteThis gives CVG a chance to bring in another airline, maybe a budget carrier like AirTran. You should be happy with this.
A corporation that makes billions a year has a moral obligation to serve the poor..especially when it can spend $20M on a concourse..
ReplyDeleteThey can't bring in another airline, because Delta still runs the concourse (which it isn't using)..
So the airport is tied up by Delta, but with lower capacity..
Delta isn't making billions a year right now. It's losing billions.
ReplyDeleteDelta is still paying rent on the concourse for the next 17 or so years, and according to a Delta spokesman, the company would be happy to have another carrier take over part of the lease.
Poor poor poor Delta. If that is the case, this is not exactly a testament to Delta's management skills.
ReplyDeleteWho else would pay rent for 17 years on a concourse it can't use?
CVG wouldn't have built the concourse without a long-term lease commitment.
ReplyDelete