So long, Avelo.  We hardly knew ye…

As everyone who reads these screeds know – I love crowing, “I told you so!” 

Call me a self-righteous asshole (because I am), but it does my beat-up old heart good whenever history repeats itself here on the “Fun Coast” (because, as Mark Twain said, this historic recurrence is the curse of those unfortunate rubes who are unable or unwilling to learn from it…) 

In my defense, I don’t understand the varied mysteries of the universe – or philosophical concepts like “eternal return” that says the same events will continue as time repeats in a continuous loop – or notions of recurrent oscillations between “order” and “disorder,” patterns of imperial ascendance-and-decline, or theories describing cosmological similarities, where multiple events bear striking parallels. 

But I have the innate ability to recognize good old-fashioned stupidity when I see it…

As you may recall, back in April, Volusia County’s Director of Aviation and Economic Resources Cyrus Callum, switched hats – morphing into a highly effective shill for Avelo airlines – then a two-year-old carrier that, we were told, originally demanded $3 million in a “minimum revenue guarantee” on a promise of twice-weekly flights to two “premium destinations.” 

It was all very ‘hush-hush,’ as these schemes often are… 

As the sales pitch before the Volusia County Council droned on, Director Callum held our clueless elected dullards in suspense, much like a cagey gameshow host, dropping perplexing hints about possible destinations like, “Somewhere in the Tri-State…” and “The Mid-Atlantic area…”

If our elected decisionmakers had the capacity for shame and self-awareness – that spectacle of them playing twenty-questions with a senior staffer before being asked to appropriate public funds for a secret private entity would have been mortifyingly embarrassing…

At the time, Mr. Callum set the hook by explaining that, after “negotiations,” he and the DAB team were able to reduce the impact of Volusia County’s assurance to $1 million in guaranteed revenue – a fund described as a weird insurance policy to be held in reserve and used as a bailout if/when the carrier fails to meet quarterly estimates.

In keeping with the typical cloak-and-dagger horseshit that allows corporations with their hand in our pocket to keep their identity legally secret until giddy politicians can be convinced to vote in the blind – Mr. Callum did an extraordinary job of anesthetizing the council – glossing over our abysmal history of underwriting airlines who invariably leave us in their jetwash after gorging greedily at the public teat.

For instance, does anyone remember our experience with JetBlue, Silver Airways, Sunwing, etc.?

Whatever.

Earlier this week in an informative report by business editor Clayton Park writing in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, we learned that Avelo is ending service to Melbourne, one of its nonstop routes to Sarasota, and “…will also temporarily suspend its twice-weekly nonstop Daytona Beach-Wilmington, Delaware flights for two months in early 2024.”

According to the report, “Courtney Goff, a spokeswoman for Avelo, on Friday confirmed plans to temporarily suspend service on its Daytona Beach-Wilmington route, but said the twice-a-week nonstop flights on its Daytona Beach-New Haven, Connecticut route “is not affected and will proceed as usual. It actually has a few extra dates added.”

Joanne Magley, director of marketing and customer experience for Daytona Beach International Airport, said Avelo will continue offering two incoming and two outgoing flights a week on its Daytona Beach-Wilmington route through Jan. 5.”

Look, Ms. Magley may be paid handsomely in public funds to blow optimistic smoke up our backsides – but in my experience (and yours) – when a start-up airline begins suspending service, cutting routes, and whining about “seasonal demand,” the grim handwriting is on the wall…

Remember that $1 million “insurance policy” that you and I ponied up?

Guess what…

Last week, Director Callum sheepishly conceded to the News-Journal that Avelo has already dipped into the tax funded “guaranteed revenue” so generously offered by the Volusia County Council in April. 

“They did tap into that minimum revenue guarantee fund, but we don’t know how much. We do know that we still have a good chunk of that fund,” said Cyrus Callum, Volusia County’s director of aviation and economic resources, which includes Daytona airport.

Callum who had Friday off for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend said he did not know the exact amount that Avelo tapped from the revenue guarantee fund.

If Avelo exits Daytona Beach before the two years are up, they don’t owe the incentive money back, Callum acknowledged. “It’s just the cost of doing business,” he said.”

They don’t know how much? Really?

My ass. 

Where I come from, they call that ‘pissing good money after bad.’

Unfortunately, that happens with shocking regularity when government insinuates itself into the marketplace – picking winners and losers, voting in the blind, ensuring ludicrous minimum revenue guarantees, building private infrastructure, gifting tax breaks, and lavishing public funds on private entities – absurd policies that are counter to the time-monored principles of fairness and due diligence – mitigating risk by entering “partnerships” with eyes open, terms negotiated, and all players identified, rather than gagged and blindfolded in the ultimate act of fiduciary irresponsibility.  

When we question this pernicious practice, Volusia County’s economic development shills – like that shim-sham known as “Team Volusia” – who, while snout-deep in the public trough, assure us this secrecy grift is now required in the murky world of corporate welfare and “public/private partnerships” – where our tax dollars are used to underwrite the for-profit motives of private entities.

Bullshit.  

Perhaps when the next too-good-to-be-true “opportunity” comes calling, we should ask our elected officials if they are willing to invest their family’s personal savings in a mysterious business entity that refuses to identify itself?

Look, I am sick and tired of being blatantly lied to by these half-bright flimflam artists who burn through our hard-earned tax dollars under the dubious guise of “economic development” – then, when it falls flat, shrug the shoulders of their expensive suit with a “just the cost of doing business” dodge – while continuing to embrace risky corporate welfare strategies that allow entrenched insiders to skew the natural balance of a competitive marketplace.

In my view, it is wrong.  It is dishonest.  And it needs to stop.