Let me ask you a more specific question with regard to that. Is there any specific role you plan on taking on with regard to work force development dollars in PWDC? Is there going to be any coordination now between work force development and economic development or is this still going to be the same old disconnect?
That's exactly what we're going to try to address, Councilman.
No. That's what this process will be for. 192 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Ms. Naidoff. I think in response to a question from the Chair you made reference to consolidating or moving around a variety of agencies. I don't know if I heard the entire list. If you could provide to the Chair -- you were starting to go through a list, but I don't think that list is a part of the testimony.
It seemed you were responding to a question. But one stuck out. You said that there was a proposal to, in essence, move the Art Commission over to the City Planning Commission or put it under the City Planning Commission. Did you say that? 193 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Now, I'm trying to understand how you would do that with a Charter-created agency. I'm looking at my copy of the Home Rule Charter. In Section 7 3-100, letter F, it says that the Art Commission is in the Department of Public Property. How would you move a Charter-created agency somewhere else?
Councilman, the Art Commission is not going to be affected, the Art Commission itself. What we're talking about is the support staff for the Art Commission, and that is what we would be proposing to move to the Planning Commission.
Okay. Maybe I didn't hear it that way or understand it that way. It sounded like the whole thing was going over to the Planning Commission. I don't know what you're calling this. A reorganization, is that what it's being referred to as?
How many 194 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 entities would experience a similar shift or staffs would experience a similar shift?
You mean within the arts and culture unit how many of them would be --
No, I don't want you to go through the list. How many entities are going to be moved around?
Well, it's one unit, but it has -- we have had discussions about seven parts of it.
And these are all a part of or attached to the Commerce Department?
Yes. And not all of them would be moved. I mean, one of the ones -- when I say "seven," we have a list of the ones that we've talked about. Marion Anderson, for example, would stay within the Commerce Department. The cultural fund would 195 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 stay within the Commerce Department, and five others would -- the staff would be --
You can forward all that to the Chair. Let me ask this question. I went to the kickoff for this. The Select Greater Philadelphia Campaign run by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.
Didn't they have a big fund-raising campaign to run that operation?
Well, if they kicked it off, I'm assuming that they must have some decent amount in hand, otherwise they probably wouldn't announce it. 196 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Okay. I was there for the opening. I think it will certainly do good things for the City, but I guess I'm trying to understand. Certainly it's important for the City to support the effort, but given our financial situation, I do need to at least ask if they've raised, in your testimony, at least half, more than half of the goal and it's a multi-year effort and given some of the proposed cuts in some critical areas for us that generate money for the City, arts and culture, the rec centers, swimming pools, libraries, Art Museum and the like, why is it so critically important that we take our dollars at this moment, which are being shifted away from, as the Council President pointed out, literally entities that we own and being sent over for a good campaign 197 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 but for a cause that seems to be more than halfway along where it needs to be? Why would we do that?
I think that, as I said before, these are all difficult choices, but in this case, we believe this is an investment in our future. We think that the ability to work with our business community and together try to make sure that Philadelphia attracts businesses, increases jobs, grows our population is exactly what will present us with a much brighter future and better life for all of us. So this is an investment in our future.
I understand that, and I would agree, but, I mean, they have $8 million. The campaign is not going to fall apart, short of, quite frankly, our million over four or 250 at the moment. But there are some entities that are a part of our operation here that $250,000 actually means something. I mean, you're not saying that the Select Greater Philadelphia Campaign is not 198 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 going to move forward without the $250,000, are you?
I'm sorry, and I know I paused to let you answer, but I guess let me at least add on. Or that it's any indication of a lack of support or lack of partnership or lack of relationship with our own business community short of $250,000 in one campaign?
I think it is a very important signal to our business community that we are going to work with them in this effort, that it is not something that we're looking to the business community alone to do and that we need to work together to make sure that Philadelphia becomes the kind of place that businesses want to move to.
Well, I would agree, but we do have tough choices to make and tough decisions to go through, and so probably the biggest sign that we could show to our business community that we want to have 199 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 a partnership and work with them and create a better environment is actually change the tax structure of the City of Philadelphia, which is a real indication that we mean business.
And I think we intend to do that as well, but I think that this kind of effort on business attraction is very important. I agree with you, these are very tough choices, but I think investing in our future means that the arts and culture organizations, the recreation centers, the pools, all of those facilities will be better able to be supported in the future if we do the proper investment now.
Well, tell me a little bit about that. If the proposed cuts go through for arts and culture, what is the plan to supplement or fund substituted funds for these proposed cuts? Is there a plan in place today that we can roll out to the same entities that you just mentioned that will replace the funding that's proposed that they would lose? 200 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
There is no plan in place, but, as I said, this is what we would intend to do if this budget were approved as we've proposed it. We would work with the arts and culture organizations to find those alternatives, which we believe will be important going forward, instead of being dependent on the public funds, but rather to find --
Madam Director, I believe you have the best of intentions, but the fiscal year starts in seven weeks. Once the cuts are made, when is the plan going to be put in place? I mean, we keep talking about this great future. They don't live in the future. They'll make plans on the present based on what they believe or know that they're going to get that comes out of this budget process. So for some, we're laying out what their future is. We're guaranteeing certain investments to certain entities which, I would submit at the moment, do not need their funding as desperately as others, and we have 201 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 no plan for replacement, but we'll work with you in the future. In the meantime, many will be laid off, places will close, end of conversation and discussion. And you know as well as I do that at least with municipal facilities, it is fairly rare and only under the most unusual circumstances after many years that anything that closes or takes a significant cut ever gets restored. Now, you know that as well as I do, certainly from your public sector and private sector experience.
So it seems to me that the goal has to be that you don't ever allow things to get to that point, but we're willing to make certain investments for certain things and certain people, but not for others. And I think that's where we're having the difficulty. The issue was raised about the Art Museum. This came up a while ago. There are a number of leases involving our Art Museum. One is dated January 14, 1929. One is dated 202 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 January 19, 1968. One is dated July 30, 1970. I'm going to read you a section from the 1968 lease, which superseded the 1929 lease. It is Item No. 4 on . "The Commission," which is the Fairmount Park Commission, "shall meet out of appropriations made by the Council of the City of Philadelphia the cost of repairs to the buildings, supplying water, heat, light and power to them, and keeping the grounds around the buildings in good condition. The Corporation," which is the Art Museum, "out of appropriations made to it by the said Council shall pay for those expenditures, other than salaries and wages, as designated by the Council in the approved budget for the security, care and maintenance of the buildings, pictures and other objects of art belonging to the City." Are you familiar with that lease?
I think as the President pointed out earlier, it does appear to be, unless someone is going to tell us that it's an invalid document, an absolute 203 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 obligation by the City to cover not only utilities but a wide variety of costs. I think they've been estimated in the current fiscal year at $5.4 million. We currently pay $2.25 million, plus the utilities, and as indicated, we seem to want to get a pat on the back or a medal for picking up the utilities for which we have an obligation and we're short on the operating side. So some of these things are just not making a whole lot of sense. Let me ask you one other question. There was a story in the paper -- and I commend the department for its efforts and all of the other people who have been involved for some of the recent retention efforts and positive items. I did want to query you about one that was in the paper on Wednesday, April 21st. It indicates that the company FMC has decided to stay in Philadelphia, which is good for us. I wanted to ask you one thing from that story. This was a city and state effort apparently and the story goes on to read that "Pennsylvania has offered job training 204 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 assistance and the City has agreed to pay the cost of remodeling FMC's space." Is that correct?
I'm going to ask my colleagues to come up, but I do believe that we did provide assistance on the tenant fitout. Duane Bumb, the Deputy Director of Commerce, and Peter Longstreth, the Head of PIDC, were involved in that transaction and they'll address your question.
Good afternoon, Mr. Councilman. Duane Bumb, the Deputy Commerce Director. Actually, I think I'm going to refer this to Peter Longstreth, the --
Peter Longstreth again. This is one that I'm very happy to report. While we discussed with FMC the possibility of assisting in funding some of their tenant work, after considerable discussions, it was decided that they really 205 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 did not need any incentive at all and so they're signing their lease without the need for an incentive. Once again, it doesn't happen always this way, but in this case, it did. So I guess the newspaper report was maybe a little bit behind that process.
Well, we were prepared to assist. In their particular case, we offered a low-interest loan to assist in the funding of their tenant improvements, and, once again, they decided not to accept that.
Let me ask this question: I know they're a 400-person business entity and a large business here in Philadelphia. Do we offer the same kind of assistance to smaller businesses? I mean, if there were ten 40-person businesses, would we run around and provide a lot of the same incentives and offers and propose to remodel their offices and things like that? Do we offer those same kind of services to 206 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 everybody?
Yeah. I mean, I think absolutely. PIDC's business is about 90 percent in neighborhoods outside of Center City and we make about 150 different loans every year, virtually all of them being smaller businesses of that kind. So I'd say absolutely, yes.
Well, I think that's good. And is there the same, I guess, time and attention focused on retention or assistance or expansion for those types of businesses as there are for the big ones?
I mean, once again, I guess I could only say that in terms of the resources that we commit to that, we have an organization for smaller businesses that is actually a little bit larger because they're a little bit more labor-intensive transactions. So I would say once again yes.
Okay. I guess they just don't seem to attract the same amount of attention.
I think that's 207 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 absolutely true.
I mean, do we have big press events or do we highlight them or do we talk about all we're doing for small businesses?
It varies, but we certainly try to and we get press occasionally.
Okay. Now, the question came up earlier with regard to the -- I think there was a question around the economic stimulus funds. The testimony seemed to indicate that for the upcoming fiscal year, you're looking at $4.1 million. Is that correct?
But in response to the earlier question, it wasn't clear what's happened with the money over the past few years. I didn't understand the 208 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 response, quite frankly.
I apologize. I think the response was simply we do not have the report with all the detail in this room at this moment, but there is a report and it has all the detail that the Council President requested.
Okay. And are there written standards or criteria to access economic stimulus funds? Is there a policy?
I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer this, because it relates to the Administration as a whole, but I think they tend to be very transactionally directed resources.
And I think that's exactly what I was trying to get at before when I said that part of what we will be doing in the Summit and Blueprint process is looking at all of our incentive programs from a strategic standpoint and trying to see if there are policies and linkages that we need to be looking at. 209 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Tell me a little bit more about the Summit. It seems like it's going to be pretty intense. I mean, all of our policies and procedures, everything that we're going to do going forward is coming out of the Summit?
The Summit is part of a larger process. It's a strategic planning process. It is one step in that process, and what we're looking at is trying to develop a strategic plan for Philadelphia's economic development. We're going to have an opportunity to --
We're going to write it within our department, make recommendations to the Mayor and then the Mayor will -- it will be the Mayor's plan for economic development. He will release it.
And when do 210 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 you anticipate this process to start?
We expect the process to start over the summer. The process is -- the Summit is not a one-day process, which is, I think, some -- is a piece of misunderstanding that's around. It's an attempt to create working groups that will work over the summer in a number of areas. At this point, we've identified seven of them, but as you probably know, the Mayor has appointed a Planning Committee of members 13 who will help us decide whether the concepts 14 that we've determined at this point are, in 15 fact, the ones that we ought to be doing. 16 We expect to have conversations with 17 them over the next two weeks, and then we have 18 a meeting with that Planning Committee to determine the exact shape of the Summit. But as we've proposed it, it will be a series of working groups that would work through the summer, and then it would culminate in early September in the Summit that is the one that people generally think of. It would be a full day in which the 211 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 working groups would report back and there would be interactive discussion about what the priorities of economic development ought to be for Philadelphia.
And then from that, we will feed that information into the work that we have been doing all along. We want to conduct a fair amount of research over the summer to create databases, to do research into the kinds of economic development policies that have been done in other places and to get the input from academic and other persons who have been studying economic development and, hopefully, weave all of this together into a Blueprint, which, as I said, we hope to put before the Mayor by the end of October.
Well, what's been our plan, I guess, over the past 212 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 two, three, four years?
As I mentioned earlier, it seems to me that the economic development activities of the City had been mostly transactionally driven. They've been transactions, deal by deal, which is not unusual. This is what most cities do. And it seemed as we talked about it, as I talked about it with the Mayor when he had asked me to take on this job, that this was one important thing that I hoped that we would do, and he agreed that it was something that was important and necessary and one that he, in fact, put on a very quick timetable, because in order to really effect the way we conduct those activities, we want to have that plan in place by the end of October.
Let's talk about the economic development fund. Your testimony indicates that you've got the Summit and the Blueprint process. And then where does the $500 million economic development fund fit into that?
The $500 million 213 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 fund, first of all, is intended to be a fund that would be developed over the four years of the Mayor's term.
We're only talking about the first 125 million, but there will be a portion of the Summit and certainly a portion of our Blueprint analysis that will be devoted to the issues of what should be the priorities for that first 125 million and how the balance of the fund can be accumulated, can be secured and the kinds of priorities that should be attached to that.
Well, it sounds like you already decided what the first priority should be for the first $125 million because you've identified, I think, three distinct locations where you want to spend it, right?
I think what we were talking about, Councilman, is the fact that the first $125 million will be devoted to waterfront-related projects, waterfront 214 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 strategy. It's part of the Mayor's agenda for the New River City, and our concept for that is that the Philadelphia waterfront is already well along in planning, the North Delaware master plan being done by the Planning Commission, the Navy Yard master plan being done by PIDC and the Schuylkill River plans being done by Schuylkill River Development Corporation. And what we intend to do at the Summit and in the Blueprint is to look at how we can knit all those activities together, how we can leverage those activities, how we can make them work in sync with one another, so that in the end, Philadelphia's waterfront can be our signature and the way that we can make sure that we do have that brighter future I was talking about.
Are there proposals in presently for development in those three areas?
Have people 215 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 made proposals to the City about development in those three areas?
Well, there's certainly development going on at the Navy Yard. I don't -- do you want to talk about that?
I'm happy to talk about it. If it's of interest, I'll be happy to describe the Navy Yard situation, which I can go on a long time about.
I bet you will and you'll just take up all my time. So why don't you get something into the Chair. I just want to finish up with the aviation unit and I'll be done.
First, is it possible, Ms. Naidoff, to -- I'd like to have a copy of the contract. We have a contract with an entity that manages the concessions out at the airport; is that correct?
Jeff Shull is 216 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 here and he'll address those issues. I'm not sure that there's one contract. I'm sorry. Ed Anastasi.
Ed Anastasi, Deputy Director of Aviation for Finance and Administration. The question was about the concession program at the airport?
Yes. We have a contract between the City and Marketplace Redwood, LLP.
For the entire concession management out at the airport?
Well, it does not cover concessions that are not terminal concessions; for instance, rental cars and airline catering concessions and so on. What it covers is the concessions within the terminal building itself. 217 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Right. You walk down the terminal, there are people doing what they're doing. All of those concessions, right?
Yes. I'm trying to think of any exceptions to that. The Pay Phone Commission concession is not, but, generally speaking, you're correct, Councilman.
It started -- don't quote me. I think it started in 1994. Because there was a transition period and then the secondary term started, I believe, in June of 1998. 218 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
I'm sorry. Let's walk back through that. The first contract was in 1994?
It's the same contract, Councilman. It began, I believe, in 1994.
Yes. There was an initial term in the contract, which I believe ran through May of 1998, and then there's a secondary term, which runs from June 1998 to the year 2013.
So at that point, it was a 15-year contract. Is that fairly standard in the industry?
In a concession development lease such as this, I would say that it is.
And what was the winning bid? 219 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455
Well, in a concession, it goes to the highest responsible bidder.
Not necessarily. It's an RFP process. It's not a bid process. So there are a number of --
Well, there's a number of financial and operational items that were proposed on by the proposers, including minimum annual guarantee, percentage of profits that would go to the City, operational standards, levels of service.
The minimum annual guarantee on the deal is based upon the number of end-plane passengers that run through the airport during a year, and it's a tiered structure, so I think -- again, don't quote me on the numbers, but let's say the 220 Whole - 5/4/04 - Bill No. 020455 first million end-plane passengers running through the airport, there is a minimum annual guarantee of 50 cents per passenger. And then it graduates, I believe, to around 55 cents for the next strata of 2 million passengers 7 going through the airport and so on.
Can you give us a complete breakdown of the funds received by the City per the contract over the last three years --
Councilman Nutter, excuse me. I believe the stenographers have to make a switch, so we'll give them a couple minutes to do so. (Pause.) 221 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04
Councilwoman Miller, you're next. You're going to have to elevate your voice because I don't think the gentleman that operates the monitor is back. Rather than wait, we'll proceed.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon. I want to follow up on a question or an issue that Councilman Goode raised, and that's on work force development. And I see one of the goals of the summit is to improve the quality of the labor force. And I have a question. Presently whose radar screen is work force development on? What are we doing with commerce that matches our economic development goals of job creation along with training, and who specifically is responsible for that?
Councilwoman that is precisely one of the reasons that I added that to the list of things that we need to 222 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 take... Am I not being heard? Sorry. ...that we need to take up at the summit, and study is part of the blueprint. But it is because it appears to be widely dispersed and not linked together as well as it could be. And I'm hoping that as part of the summit process and the blueprint process, we will find ways to link it together better and make better use of the work force development programs and the dollars that are coming in, so that we can create a well-trained work force that is capable of supplying the jobs with all the businesses that we hope to attract to Philadelphia.
Right. Because presently in terms of the City's structure in departments, where does Work Force Development Corporation come in? Does that fall anywhere under Commerce or just where? Do you know?
I don't know that it falls directly under Commerce, but I do work closely with them. And I've been on 223 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 the job, as you know, only six weeks. I've already met with both the Work Force Investment Board people.
And the Work Force Development Corporation. And it seems to me that we all do need to work together and make sure that this is a coordinated, integrated effort, to make the best use of the work force development dollars.
Okay. With your member economic development policy 14 committee, is that going to be broken up 15 into subcommittees where one specific 16 person... I guess I'm trying to find out the structure and the process and exactly how work force development and labor force development will be handled in that committee. Because that's very important. And I don't want it to get lost or pushed aside, because I have not heard anyone actually keeping an eye on how and what we need to do to develop our work force, as 224 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 relates to industry clusters and jobs in the future.
I couldn't agree with you more, Councilwoman. And that is why that is one of the seven working groups that we are proposing to establish. The planning committee that I think you were referring to, when you said the 10 member committee. 11
Those are people who will be working with us to shape the summit itself. But not necessarily to be a part of the working groups, although they may well wind up there.
One area I'd like to put on the table whenever you get to the summit is that we need to -- And 225 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 we've been talking about this in City Council. And I chair Public Safety. And we've had a couple hearings. But one area that's very critical is the whole issue of ex-offenders reentering our community. And when we had one of the hearings, and we had several of the prison groups come in, prison advocacy groups, they made mention that there's about 78,000 people that will turn -- that will return to the City of Philadelphia from prison. And right now the reentry, successive reentry is based on jobs. And many of those people don't have jobs and have a hard time finding jobs. So I'd really like to recommend that whenever you have the summit, that is a part of the discussion for work force development.
Point well taken, Councilwoman. And actually, in describing the seven working groups, when we described improving the quality of the labor force, we had six bullet points under that that we 226 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 sent out to the planning committee. And one of them was ex-offender reintegration.
Can we get a copy of whatever it is you sent out to your --
Okay. Thank you. Another thing I'd like to know -- And I don't know whether you have the numbers. But I'd like to know how many jobs have been actually created through Commerce Department projects and activities. Because I know we all talk about, you know, we're doing this project because it's going create jobs and whatnot. How many jobs have actually been created? How much money was spent on creating those jobs? And I just really want to know the outcome of these economic development projects, you know. I'll just mention a few, like Renewal Committee, 227 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 Empowerment Zone, KOZs, and more. And more. But off the top of my head, those are the ones that just come to mind. And you can give that information to the Chair and she will make sure that we all get that.
Let me just check my page here. I'd also like to get an organizational flow chart of the Commerce Department itself. I'd like a chart that says... you know, in terms of the titles of the positions and who holds them and the diversity, both male, female, and racial breakdown of what's going on over at Commerce.
And... Wait a minute. And those are my questions for now. 228 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 Thank you, Council President Verna.
You're welcome. The Chair Recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to fly back to the airport for a moment. A number of years ago we had a hearing in Council, talking about exclusivity of gates and monopolies of gates in U.S. Air. And we were attempting at the time to have some discussion about a low-cost air carrier coming in, to really be a competitor to U.S. Air. And that low-cost carrier was Southwest. And we were told at the time that that would never happen, that Southwest would never want to come here, that the turnaround time was too long, and that it was blah-blah, blah-blah-blah. And Southwest, thank God, is opening starting May 9th to service Philadelphia. 229 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 In your testimony on you talk about the issue of getting better control over our gates, and that the 1974 leases which are expiring in 2006, we will attempt to renegotiate those in a more flexible and not exclusive way. On page... On of your testimony, it talks about the Overseas Terminal. And may I say it's a beautiful international terminal. I've just used it recently. And it was absolutely wonderful, a great experience. It was very positive, both going in and coming out. But I do notice that there are 32 international destinations, 11 of which are European, are Caribbean, and 3 are 18 Canadian. That speaks volumes to me as a result of not having access direct to Philadelphia from the Pacific Rim, from Eastern Europe, from Central or South America, from Western Africa, from areas that not only provide opportunities for business, but provide opportunity for 230 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 immigration, which cities like New York and Chicago and Miami and others have taken advantage of. What is the current status of the 6 gates at the new terminal, international 7 terminal? Who are they leased to, and what 8 is the term of the lease, and any 9 restrictions or lack of restrictions on 10 those leases? 11
As you said, Councilman, the International Terminal includes 13 gates. 10 of these gates are being used by U.S. Airways on a preferential basis.
Preferential. Again, I recognize what that is. Would you explain for the record what preferential means, as opposed to totally exclusive.
Preferential really means non-exclusive, in a sense that the airline pays for the gate, pays rentals on the gate. 231 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 However, if the airline is not using that gate for a certain period of time, then that gate can be assigned by the airport to another airline to use that gate.
What's the minimum number of moves per day that dictate the preferential status of the gate? Is there a certain number of flights per day?
In the International Terminal I don't believe that there is a turns per day criteria.
I'm sorry. COUNCIMLAN KENNEY: As in the domestic terminal. I think there's --
As in the domestic terminal, yeah. For instance, the gates -- some of the gates in Terminal D and some of the gates in E are used on a preferential basis as well. And I believe four turns per day is 232 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 the requirement for an airline to operate or else it stands a chance of losing that gate.
Now, in the International Terminal there's no such requirement?
Then, based on the terms of the lease, what determines the airport's ability to designate that particular international gate as something that needs to be utilized better, perhaps with another airline.
The airline -- in this case would be U.S. Airways -- is allowed so much time per flight to use the gate. So after that time period expires, and U.S. Airways is not on the gate, then the airport can assign the use of that gate. But as I said, there is no per turn.
So the ability to determine or to extrapolate the use, 233 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 isn't it difficult because it's based on a turnaround time --
We won't be able to tell into the future how often that gate will or will not be used.
Well, I think the situation is that as long as the airlines say U.S. Airways operates a number of flights both probably domestic and international at those gates, and... that it would continue to have the use of those gates.
Right. So I mean, it's -- it's -- it's -- it's not -- It's preferential but it's kind of an exclusive preferential...
I wouldn't call it exclusive. It still is non-exclusive in the industry. That's the term for it. But it's not -- it is not common use. It is preferential.
What do you think the -- And this is asked for the 234 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 Commerce Director or anybody else. What do you think the detriment or the lost opportunity we have in not being able to service Philadelphia directly from many areas of the world, where we lose business opportunities on a regular basis? I'll give you a good example. You know, S.E.P.T.A. is negotiating that or dealing with that contract on the new rail cars. The Korean company that comes in and out of here to do that business or try to do that business needs to change planes in Chicago in order to get to Philadelphia, and cannot fly direct. Even countries like Ireland which have started -- which the airline has started basically tourist season service, for 15, 20 years was the strongest economy in Europe; could not get directly to Philadelphia without going to Newark or JFK. Don't you really think in a global economy that really puts Philadelphia at a 235 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 severe disadvantage to cities like New York and Chicago and Washington? And what are we doing to try to change that to expand that international terminal to more than just Europe and the Caribbean?
I think you said the magic word which is expansion, and there is --
Well, no. I mean, I don't want to get off on that yet --
-- because I don't know if we have the -- We're talking a long time period for expansion and real capital investment. Talking about right now with a beautiful, gleaming, spanking brand new 13-gate terminal, why can't we get a Pacific Rim carrier or a Central American carrier or a Western African carrier or an Indian carrier -- an Asian Indian carrier to expand our opportunities for business 236 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 and immigration?
Well, I can say along with some of the contingency planning we're doing, looking at U.S. Airways, one of the things that we have done is we've engaged an air service consultant, as looking specifically at international routes, both existing international routes and potential new routes for Philadelphia. And Councilman, one of the most important and difficult things that you have to do to convince an airline, obviously, is prove that we have enough of a market in Philadelphia to support those flights. So basically what the charge to this consultant is is to list, you know, in categories markets that are easily sustainable with just the base Philadelphia traffic, and also potentially identifying new international markets that can be supported by our base traffic in Philadelphia.
The problem with 237 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 that analysis is that for so many years we have not been a direct destination to or from these foreign -- It's almost that it becomes first the chicken or the egg. I mean, if you have to -- If you're used to -- If our flying regional public is used to going to New York and to Newark or to Washington to get to other international destinations, how do we gauge what our real market is? I mean, it's almost this we haven't had the market so we never will have it. I mean, are we out there actively pursuing?
Specifically and probably most importantly at this point, like I said, the initial charge for the consultant was to look at our current international service because there's... Certainly the highest risk, we think, in 238 Whole - Operating Budget - 5/4/04 the event that something happens to U.S. Airways and they would no longer operate certainly is the international service, specifically the transatlantic service. So the primary thing was to look at those routes, see the ones that are with our local market, because obviously, especially when you talk about the Caribbean, a lot of those Caribbean flights are sustainable for U.S. Airways by their through traffic coming from other cities in their network. So that really was the first objective. But beyond --
But the Caribbean could also be accommodated in the domestic terminal; couldn't it?
The Caribbean could also be accommodated in the domestic terminal; could it not? I mean, there's less restrictions on... I mean, you know, you can get on a plane with your driver's license and your voter's registration card.
It's not that same restriction you'd have, you know, needing a passport.
That's true. There are less restrictions. But currently U.S. Airways operates all their Caribbean flights out of Terminal A West because those banks are generally in the morning, and they really mesh well with the international -- the transatlantic banks in the afternoon.