One might forgive Regional Airline Association (RAA) president Roger Cohen for expressing what he called a certain “righteous indignation” on Tuesday after a day of meetings, forums and glad-handing during the association's annual convention, which began Monday and ends today. In fact, given the legislative, regulatory and public relations battles the RAA has fought over the past year, one might expect a rather surly mood among the regional airline presidents and CEOs who gathered at the Frontier Airlines Center in Milwaukee. But a scan of the bustling convention hall told a different story-one of optimism for a future that looks brighter each day as economic conditions improve and traffic rebounds faster than most had expected during last year's decidedly moribund get-together in Salt Lake City.
In fact, by the end of the show Cohen could afford to let go of any lingering negativity; this year's RAA Convention would prove the largest in the history of the organization. The RAA expected that more than 1,700 attendees would pass through the turnstiles by the end of the confab, perhaps reflecting a resilience for which few would have given the industry credit while it has fought its way through perhaps its worst image crisis since the 1994 crash of a Simmons Airlines ATR 72 in Roselawn, Ind.
