If a deal had been reached and PIT wasn't downsized so much, where do you guys think the cuts would have come from, given the return of so many A/C? DCA? CLT?
Intl Service restoration for PIT
- Thread starter Rob
- Start date
flyguy121
Senior
- Aug 20, 2002
- 360
- 0
Agreed 100%. Allegheny County wanted a WN presence and now they have it. Be careful what you wish for...
That would probably be difficult to prove. There are plenty of cities seeing economic and population growth without the air service of a hub.
In the long run, neither side (the county nor the company) probably did everything they could to keep the hub in place. There seemed to be a lot of hard feelings on both sides.
US Airways made the decision they did, and the Airport Authority is doing what it can to move on, like attracting other carriers such as Southwest and JetBlue. Any additional service is a good thing.
PIT may never have the level of service it once did. But 27 of PIT's top 30 O&D markets can still be reached nonstop, whether it is with US Airways or other carriers. PIT has a good level of service --- more than some other cities its size.
It's all a trade off -- PIT lost a significant number of flights, but fares are now more affordable and O&D traffic levels have never been higher.
Travelpro72
Veteran
- Jan 30, 2005
- 4,964
- 455
I don't think Western Pennsylvania takes anything personal. They almost had a deal and it was a bust in the last few minutes. The airport needed new competition and now has it. The only thing US pulling back has done is help other carriers shoot the O&D numbers through the roof. As stated, most popular destination can still be reached nonstop and by multiple carriers. As for the BS about population.....CLT has a MUCH smaller population than Pittsburgh and its surrounding area yet a large hub is thriving there. Geographical my foot. If you send your flights there to connect the flights fill up with your locals to produce full flights. Whats the difference of going BUF-PIT-FLL than BUF-CLT-FLL. The more US cut the more expensive it became for them in PIT. I'll never buy it. PHL is the ONLY way to go....yeah right and mgmt needs to keep telling themselves that.
Whatnow?
Veteran
- Nov 4, 2003
- 862
- 8
Getting back to the topic of this thread, not about the PHL hub versus PIT hub. Internationally Philadelphia is a hands down winner in that category. PHL has more pull for O/D traffic from being in the middle of the major East Coast population centers. With Lufthansa's daily flight to Frankfurt, BA's 2 daily flights to London, AirFrance's daily flight to Paris all sustaining themselves without connecting passengers there is definitely more O/D for those flights to be flown out of PHL rather than PIT. That's why T/A service out of PHL is a more lucrative market.
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ClueByFour
Veteran
By this logic, CLT has neither the population nor the O&D to support a hub.
I'm sure the good folks in GSO/GSP/AVL, for instance, wonder how they've ever managed to grow their business bases by factors of magnitude without a hub. RDU seems to have done just fine in a post-hub environment, and the notion that a hub has anything to do with population growth is extra laughable.
Travelpro72
Veteran
- Jan 30, 2005
- 4,964
- 455
There are quite a few cities in the US with large corporations that don't have a hub at their airport. I doubt that population has much to do with a hub. The PIT airport was built as a "connecting hub" terminal. Everyone knew that the city and surrounding area could not fill all those flights with O&D alone. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that PHL is swamped and regardless of the improvements made to the airport or whatever it still doesn't help where the airport is located. There are also quite a few int'l companies besides Bayer in Pittsburgh. I think someone will fill the void for int'l service at some point whether it's US or a European carrier. The int'l service from PHL is honestly a great operation and needs to grow.
