Found the below article titled "How US Airways Gave Upo on Laguardia". A little lengthy and dated (Oct 2011), but what I found most interesting were the following two paragraghs:
Finally, US continues to put off a decision on the future of fleet of its wholly-owned Express carrier Piedmont Airlines. The commuter airline operates the majority of those 39% of flights at LaGuardia on aircraft with fewer than 37 seats on aged Dash-8s that, according to numerous industry analysts, need to be either replaced or retired during the next few years. It currently flies 30 -100s and 11 larger -300s with an average age of 21.4 years, according to Airfleets.net. Many suspect that management’s inaction on this issue is a signal that it plans to eventually retire the Piedmont fleet without a replacement—a move that effectively seals the fate for the bulk of US’ operations at La Guardia if it were to keep its slots.
It should be noted that replacing the Piedmont fleet has been somewhat out of the control of US management. Bombardier stopped manufacturing the -100 in 2005 and the -300 in 2009, leaving only the 78-seat Q400 on the market. A Piedmont employee says that the airline has faced difficulty acquiring any replacement Dash aircraft for a “reasonable” price on the secondary market due to high demand. The ATR-42-600 is the only comparable aircraft to the existing fleet that is still in production; however, the type is rarely seen in commercial operations in the US due to prior issues involving wing icing.
So, what's up with the Piedmont's future? I would think with a fleet of new(er) 50-69 seat turboprop aircraft, US Airways could dominate the feeder traffic from smaller hub airports in the northeast and mid-Atlantic.
http://nycaviation.com/2011/10/how-us-airways-gave-up-on-laguardia/
Finally, US continues to put off a decision on the future of fleet of its wholly-owned Express carrier Piedmont Airlines. The commuter airline operates the majority of those 39% of flights at LaGuardia on aircraft with fewer than 37 seats on aged Dash-8s that, according to numerous industry analysts, need to be either replaced or retired during the next few years. It currently flies 30 -100s and 11 larger -300s with an average age of 21.4 years, according to Airfleets.net. Many suspect that management’s inaction on this issue is a signal that it plans to eventually retire the Piedmont fleet without a replacement—a move that effectively seals the fate for the bulk of US’ operations at La Guardia if it were to keep its slots.
It should be noted that replacing the Piedmont fleet has been somewhat out of the control of US management. Bombardier stopped manufacturing the -100 in 2005 and the -300 in 2009, leaving only the 78-seat Q400 on the market. A Piedmont employee says that the airline has faced difficulty acquiring any replacement Dash aircraft for a “reasonable” price on the secondary market due to high demand. The ATR-42-600 is the only comparable aircraft to the existing fleet that is still in production; however, the type is rarely seen in commercial operations in the US due to prior issues involving wing icing.
So, what's up with the Piedmont's future? I would think with a fleet of new(er) 50-69 seat turboprop aircraft, US Airways could dominate the feeder traffic from smaller hub airports in the northeast and mid-Atlantic.
http://nycaviation.com/2011/10/how-us-airways-gave-up-on-laguardia/
