US Airways to Demote Pittsburgh

US Airways has announced that they are going to demote Pittsburgh from "hub"
status to "focus" status. Philly and Charlotte will remain hubs.

They will also put less emphasis on hub-and-spoke operations.

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=111&sid=14024

"R J Carpenter" wrote in message
...
US Airways has announced that they are going to demote Pittsburgh from
"hub"
status to "focus" status. Philly and Charlotte will remain hubs.

They will also put less emphasis on hub-and-spoke operations.

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=111&sid=14024

Other Star Alliance carriers should be able to serve Pittsburgh.
Hopefully this will mean more point to point flights to/from non hub cities
such as MSY.


--
Andy P. Jung
Metairie, Louisiana U.S.A.
http://www.JungWorld.com/

To reply via e-mail, please visit my web site.

Andy P. Jung wrote:

Other Star Alliance carriers should be able to serve Pittsburgh.

I doubt if theere will be any increase in services on their part. United
will be wary of stepping into US Airways' backyard and probably won't be
interested in Pittsburgh in any event. LH may step in to take over PIT-FRA
given the Bayer presence but taht's only if US Airways gives that route up.
Air Canada alraedy has all the services it needs from PIT. I don't see any
other international services from PIT. PIT-FRA is currently the only
year-round inter-continental service out of PIT.

GeneJYao extrapolated from data available...

Andy P. Jung wrote:

Other Star Alliance carriers should be able to serve Pittsburgh.

I doubt if theere will be any increase in services on their part.
United
will be wary of stepping into US Airways' backyard and probably won't
be interested in Pittsburgh in any event. LH may step in to take over
PIT-FRA given the Bayer presence but taht's only if US Airways gives
that route up. Air Canada alraedy has all the services it needs from
PIT. I don't see any other international services from PIT. PIT-FRA
is currently the only year-round inter-continental service out of PIT.


PIT's a nice place, and if one was forced to spend hours in an airport, PIT
would be among my top choices of which there are not many). Unfortunately,
PIT is somewhat removed from the hustle and bustle of the modern world and
the lines of people arriving and departing on purpose just never lived up
to USeless Air's big expectations.

Recently, PIT announced an attempt to let non-ticketed travelers back onto
the concourses, hoping to offset the decline in restaurant/bar/retail
business. Now, with even fewer flights, there will plenty of empty bar
stools. But then the remaining flights can be moved to the tips of the
spokes with a nearby security entry at each, leaving the hub and inner
portions to the crowds of Pittsburgians/Pittsburgenos who would come to the
airport for shopping and dining. Why, they could call it "Sky Mall" and
parents could drop off their barely-bigger'n-rugrats to wander about and
run over old ladies with their skate boards.

TMO

As I read the release, PHL will be the USAir gateway for Europe and
Charlotte for the Caribbean.

I'd guess that PIT's airport will be fairly vacant. Wasn't a very large
percentage of passengers making connections? Just how much O&D traffic is
there at PIT?

It seems those "If you don't subsidize us we'll leave" threats were real.
How many lawyers will get rich sorting out the gate leases?

"R J Carpenter" wrote in message
...
As I read the release, PHL will be the USAir gateway for Europe and
Charlotte for the Caribbean.

I'd guess that PIT's airport will be fairly vacant. Wasn't a very large
percentage of passengers making connections? Just how much O&D traffic is
there at PIT?

It seems those "If you don't subsidize us we'll leave" threats were real.
How many lawyers will get rich sorting out the gate leases?



The gate lease issue was settled several months ago between Allegheny County
and US Airways. US air kept 50 long term leases and all others are month to
month.

Ryan

Olivers wrote in message ...

PIT's a nice place, and if one was forced to spend hours in an airport, PIT
would be among my top choices of which there are not many).

Not for planespotters ;-).

Unfortunately,
PIT is somewhat removed from the hustle and bustle of the modern world and
the lines of people arriving and departing on purpose just never lived up
to USeless Air's big expectations.

Chalk it up to their development of the PHL hub which made PIT
redundant. PIT would have fit in better as an E-W hub had US Airways
developed their western netowrk better (which they were going to after
taking over PSA) but competition from WN nixed that.

Recently, PIT announced an attempt to let non-ticketed travelers back onto
the concourses, hoping to offset the decline in restaurant/bar/retail
business. Now, with even fewer flights, there will plenty of empty bar
stools. But then the remaining flights can be moved to the tips of the
spokes with a nearby security entry at each, leaving the hub and inner
portions to the crowds of Pittsburgians/Pittsburgenos who would come to the
airport for shopping and dining.

Pittsbrughers.

Why, they could call it "Sky Mall" and
parents could drop off their barely-bigger'n-rugrats to wander about and
run over old ladies with their skate boards.

The PIT Airmall (official name) would not survive without the
airport traffic. I can't imagine too many Pittsburghers willing to
put up with paying parking fees just to visit the Airmall, especially
since much of what can be had there can also be had just a few miles
away in the big box shopping and entertainment facilities in the PIT
airport area. Also, the mall rugrats are more likely to prefer being
dropped off at the nearby Mall at Robinson instead.

R J Carpenter wrote:

As I read the release, PHL will be the USAir gateway for Europe and
Charlotte for the Caribbean.

I think it'll be more like PHL being the gateway for Europe and the
Carribean and CLT being a second gateway to the Carribean. I know the press
release didn't say that but that's what they have now and it works well for
them so I doubt if they'll tamper with it. They also said that they would
increase trans-Atlantic operations out of PHL since this is one field they
don't have to compete with WN for and the feed will provide more business for
thier ex-PHL flights. As far as that is concerned, however, I can only see
them adding two more destinations assuming that they cancel the trans-Atlantic
PIT flights and reuse the planes from PIT-FRA PIT-LGW for ex-PHL trans-Atlantic
flying.

I'd guess that PIT's airport will be fairly vacant. Wasn't a very large
percentage of passengers making connections? Just how much O&D traffic is
there at PIT?

Not enough. I believe PIT isn't in the top 40 in the U.S. for O&D,
according to this article.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04128/312649.stm

It seems those "If you don't subsidize us we'll leave" threats were real.
How many lawyers will get rich sorting out the gate leases?

Well the writing was on the way since way back. I don't even know why the
folks at PIT felt they had a shot of keeping the hub, with airlines cutting
back and all. They should have jsut let US Airways go and concentrated more on
attracting LCC's. Instead they played the gmae of both trying to retain the US
Airways hub and attracting the LCCs and they failed at both. Had they been
more ambivalent to US Airways then maybe, just maybe, WN might have chosen PIT
as a new city but, as it played out, with US Airways continuing to use PIT as a
fortress hub and the PIT market being small relatively speaking, there was a
fat chance of that. Now WN is too busy with PHL on its hands to consider PIT.

"GeneJYao" wrote in message
...

Now WN is too busy with PHL on its hands to consider PIT.

I have mixed feelings about whether PHL is a good choice for WN.

I frequently look at http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp and PHL shows a
ground delay or groundstop quite often, though not as often as ORD, ATL, or
EWR. I suppose that WN thinks they have a scheme for scheduling aircraft
through PHL such that the delays won't ripple through their entire system.

All this talk is rather moot. US Airways announced on Friday that it may have
to reenter bankrupcy protection sooner rather than later. It needs to
accelerate reorganisation and get unions to sacrifice even more.

Another aspect is that because its credit rating has gone down, it now has
difficulty securing the financing needed for its purchase the 170 regional
jets required to complete its restructuring.

Doesn't look good to me.