The demise of Direct Air didn’t only hurt Niagara County, which saw a full cancellation of flights out of Niagara Falls International Airport. The regional carrier left a number of smaller airports throughout the country scrambling after it ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy.
We talked a few weeks back with Henry Sloma, the NFTA interim chair and a Lewiston resident, and he said it wasn’t the Falls, but other airports that took down the carrier.
But Mike Dunn, the director of Chicago Rockford International Airport, contacted us to challenge Sloma’s statements.
Dunn said the loads out of Rockford were as good as they were here in the Falls, with 99 percent of the seats for March’s flights sold.
Dunn added that all regional airports who had counted on Direct Air are bitter about the way the company handled the situation.
Because the airline says it plans to reorganize and resume flights in May, neither credit card companies nor the airline will issue refunds.
Here’s a statement Dunn issued:
I