Worcester Airport Is A No Man’s Land

A reporter's notebook

WORCESTER, Mass. — There is very little going on here at the Worcester Regional Airport. There are a couple dozen cars parked in the open-air parking lot. But no people.

At the parking attendant booth, the sign says "Stop For Attendant," but there's no one in the booth. When you pull a few feet up to the machine that dispenses parking tickets, you can't get a ticket, because the electronic guts are hanging out of the machine.

Inside, plenty of parking spaces.

Inside the terminal, it's very, very empty. Not one passenger in here. Not one passenger in front of the airline ticketing counter. No one to take the tickets. The escalators aren't running.

There are no passengers down the way waiting to rent cars at the car rental counter, although there does seem to be someone staffing the counter. On one end of this football-length long terminal is a sign that reads "Welcome to Worcester." On the other end, there's a huge sign that reads "Air Capital of the World."

Not here.

That sign, "Air Capital of the World," was put up when the recent Tom Cruise movie "Night and Day" shot some scenes at the Worcester Airport and made the terminal to resemble Wichita's airport. The Worcester Airport's managers left the sign up but candidly admit it's not a realistic goal.

They also point out the escalator is turned off to reduce energy use in between flight arrivals, and many customers who rent cars pick them up without ever visiting the rental car counter.