After months of unhappy news about departing major airlines, employees at Bangor International Airport had something to celebrate last month with the announcement that Telford Aviation and Ages-Volvo Aero would be bringing a national parts and service center to the airport.

The announcement gives a proper boost to the airport’s new four-year revitalization plan. And it shows that cooperation and hard work can produce success for one of Bangor’s prime economic engines. Now the challenge will be to put the rest of the plan in place over the next few years.

Gov. Angus King last August proposed a task force to develop ways that local, state and federal government officials could work together to help the airport. The plan is the result of the task force’s work, and it lays out four major areas for improvement: marketing and development; state-level support; local action; and federal funding. BIA is like many other rural airports that have been hurt by the deregulation of the airline industry, which has created bargains at major hubs but left many smaller airports without the service they need to remain economically healthy. The task force plan is a positive response to a difficult situation.

It would significantly increase marketing of the region to both airlines and travelers, trying to capture more of the local tourist traffic and regional business travel, especially from New Brunswick. To do that, of course, it will have to offer more flights and less expensive flights. These will come at a price – the task force recommends spending about $1 million a year over the four-year plan.

It would require, in addition, better links between the airport and the interstate, a connection between planes and local buses and passenger rail and a new air cargo facility to handle increased business. State support of these plans will be crucial. Transportation Commissioner John Melrose already has been helpful in getting the task force to this point, but Bangor also needs the Transportation Department to move quickly on the proposed infrastructure changes that will make BIA a more efficient, more effective regional airport.

The role for the state’s congressional delegation is more straightforward, with one exception. There is a possibility that flights leaving Bangor could fly nonstop to Chicago-O’Hare and Washington National if the federal regulators think an exception should be made in the takeoff and landing slot limits at these airports. It is up to the delegation to persuade them to think that way. Otherwise, what Washington needs to supply is money – to keep the runways in shape, to build intermodal facilities and for the improved highway access, among other projects.

BIA and the region experienced the uncomfortable adjustment to a far more competitive airline industry in 1999; this year it has the chance to recapture lost business and begin a new, more effective life as the region’s premier transportation hub.