KCFlyer
Veteran
- Aug 20, 2002
- 11,207
- 1,422
Here's what's fixing to happen at PIT: All of the Legacy carriers will eventually pull out of there because of the increased LCC entrants like SWA, they simply won't be able to compete with that many LCC's in the market, especially because they don't have much market share even now. The local economy has already suffered and will continue to suffer as long as US continues to cutback there......that is the unfortunate part of this whole thing! Why couldn't the city help out a struggling carrier that employed at one point up to 12,000 employees who contributed to the local economy base and the Airline who contributed vastly to the local economy? Be careful of what you ask for! B)
Can I ask you what the difference is (save for the 14 or so seats that comprise the first class cabin) between a LCC and a "legacy" carrier? If the populace is offered several flights that are non-stop, or offer a connection thru a less busy airport, what are they losing if legacy carriers pull out. One thing I've noticed about Southwest is that they are pretty proactive when it comes to demand for travel out of a given city. When AA pulled out of the MCI-STL market, SWA didn't cut back flights and raise fares...they pretty much maintained hourly flights between the two cities.
But Kansas City is a perfect example of how wrong your line of thinking is. Southwest is the largest carrier out of our city, but we also have service from American, United, USAirways, Northwest, Delta, Continental, Midwest Express, Airtran, America West, Frontier and Air Canada. If what you say is correct, legacy airlines in a "small" market would pull up stakes, yet that hasn't happened in Kansas City. Yes...along with the LCC of Southwest, we also have the "other" LCC's - Frontier, America West, and Airtran - serving our city. But every "legacy" airline also has a presence here. We also happen to have a maintenance base for American (used to be TWA's) up here. So while there were some job losses after AA bought TWA, there is still a maintenance presence here (albeit for how long nobody really knows).