US Airways Express returns MGW/CKB/PKB

[FM2436]

May 1st, Colgan Air will resume US Airways Express service at Morgantown/Clarksburg/Parkersburg WV into PIT flying Sassb 340s.

http://www.colganair.com/WVCities.htm

 

[Prince of PAWOBs]

Well, It's a start...

 

[BuffaloJoe]

May 1st, Colgan Air will resume US Airways Express service at Morgantown/Clarksburg/Parkersburg WV into PIT flying Sassb 340s.

http://www.colganair.com/WVCities.htm

Are those EAS Routes?

 

[wings396]

They are also going to stop flying the ABE-PIT market on the same day. I assume that this freed up a few A/C which enabled them to operate these flights.
Just a note on the ABE-PIT service..When they end this service on May 1st, it will end 40 years of service in this market... 🙁 This market was originally operated by TWA, and US took it over when they left ABE in 1967.
At one point there were 5 mainline flights a day from ABE-PIT, and 4 of them ran very high passenger loads. There were MD-80's, 733's, 734's,and F100's operating these routes for many years, and now it isn't even worth operating a Saab 340 on the route.
It is sad to reflect just how far backwards this Airline has gone in the last few years. I'm sure there are many other former US routes that have gone in the same direction.

 

[JAXPax]

This is a result of the implosion and shutdown of RegionsAir.... who one of the WV airport managers Carolyn Strock was so excited to get in there (and get rid of US Airways Express) but they had a far worse completion rate. And now they've shut down.

 

[ABEFLYER]

They are also going to stop flying the ABE-PIT market on the same day. I assume that this freed up a few A/C which enabled them to operate these flights.
Just a note on the ABE-PIT service..When they end this service on May 1st, it will end 40 years of service in this market... 🙁 This market was originally operated by TWA, and US took it over when they left ABE in 1967.
At one point there were 5 mainline flights a day from ABE-PIT, and 4 of them ran very high passenger loads. There were MD-80's, 733's, 734's,and F100's operating these routes for many years, and now it isn't even worth operating a Saab 340 on the route.
It is sad to reflect just how far backwards this Airline has gone in the last few years. I'm sure there are many other former US routes that have gone in the same direction.

I don't know if the ABE-PIT loads are not sufficient to maintain service. On a Tueday midday the local paper reported 17 passsengers for the 32 passenger Saab. As posted on another board, the ABE-PIT US fare is $444RT for the 300 mile trip on the Saab, $168RT to Newark and drive back on I-78. This is still over a 50 percent load for an express flight with sky high fares. That means a gross of $3,774 for express service on one flight that lasts less than an hour. I guess personnel costs eat all profits at fares at 74 cents per mile.

With state conventions in PIT all the time,I believe a resonable fare would fill mainline flights again, with people like me that drive when I have something in PIT because the fares are not reasonable. IF US wants to be like SWA, then may be it should charge fares like SWA and fill the planes.

Another untapped being opportunity lost to US, which eventually SWA, Air Tran or JB with their 190's will find and exploit, and then Tempe will just explain they couldn't make it work because costs were too high, rather than look why it is not working. US is losing the PIT--PHL market to SWA due to the same lack of fore thought.

Tempe's philosophy seems to be "We will only fly what makes big profits, then cut when someone sees the sweetspot and comes in and grabs it, so we move on or cut some more and eventually wonder why nothing is left." They don't understand a market with reasonable profits is yours to keep and no one has a reason to come in and udnercut you.

 

[Heinrich]

Another untapped being opportunity lost to US, which eventually SWA, Air Tran or JB with their 190's will find and exploit, and then Tempe will just explain they couldn't make it work because costs were too high, rather than look why it is not working. US is losing the PIT--PHL market to SWA due to the same lack of fore thought.

Is that really true? The last comments I've seen on these routes were that US is holding onto loyal US customers in PIT, and that some of these SWA PHL-PIT planes are quiet empty

 

[rvolkcpa]

I don't know if the ABE-PIT loads are not sufficient to maintain service. On a Tueday midday the local paper reported 17 passsengers for the 32 passenger Saab. As posted on another board, the ABE-PIT US fare is $444RT for the 300 mile trip on the Saab, $168RT to Newark and drive back on I-78. This is still over a 50 percent load for an express flight with sky high fares. That means a gross of $3,774 for express service on one flight that lasts less than an hour. I guess personnel costs eat all profits at fares at 74 cents per mile.

The lvia.org website reported 1,206 emplanements and 1,252 deplanements for Colgan/US in March 2007, down from 1,369 and 1,560 in March 2006. That means the flights were only averaging about 40 passengers per day.

The lvia website also shows that Delta/Big Sky will begin service to Boston in July. US ran this for years and recently CO had service. Wings would probably know more about how well these flights performed.

 

[Bear96]

I don't know if the ABE-PIT loads are not sufficient to maintain service. On a Tueday midday the local paper reported 17 passsengers for the 32 passenger Saab. As posted on another board, the ABE-PIT US fare is $444RT for the 300 mile trip on the Saab, $168RT to Newark and drive back on I-78. This is still over a 50 percent load for an express flight with sky high fares. That means a gross of $3,774 for express service on one flight that lasts less than an hour.

You are assuming all are paying the full $444 fare to go only to PIT and back. How about the people only connecting in PIT to ultimately end up somewhere else, and who may be both (1) paying a lower overall fare, and (2) having a portion of that fare going towards getting them between PIT and their final destination. I would imagine that is the case with a majority of the people on the flight.

 

[BuffaloJoe]

They are also going to stop flying the ABE-PIT market on the same day. I assume that this freed up a few A/C which enabled them to operate these flights.
Just a note on the ABE-PIT service..When they end this service on May 1st, it will end 40 years of service in this market... 🙁 This market was originally operated by TWA, and US took it over when they left ABE in 1967.
At one point there were 5 mainline flights a day from ABE-PIT, and 4 of them ran very high passenger loads. There were MD-80's, 733's, 734's,and F100's operating these routes for many years, and now it isn't even worth operating a Saab 340 on the route.
It is sad to reflect just how far backwards this Airline has gone in the last few years. I'm sure there are many other former US routes that have gone in the same direction.

Put the flight into RDG, we can fill it. RDG needs some air service. ABE is a #### getting to with the 222 clusterf**K all the time. PHL, no need to say more about that.

 

[ClueByFour]

Is that really true? The last comments I've seen on these routes were that US is holding onto loyal US customers in PIT, and that some of these SWA PHL-PIT planes are quiet empty

Those SWA planes are so empty that they have added more of them since they entered the market. Now, either SWA has no idea how to run an airline, or they clearly know something that whomever made "the comments" to which you refer does not.

US, in that same timeframe, has reduced capacity by putting RJs on the route at key times.

Based on the actual events, rather than anecdotal (at best) "comments," is it reasonable to infer that SWA is doing rather well? I would tend to think so.

 

[Travelpro72]

Southwest puts aircraft on routes that need them and yanks them off almost immediately if they don't perform well. Southwest had done nothing but ADD service between PIT-PHL while Usairways has replaced a good portion of their mainline jets with 170's and rj's. What does that tell you? We can't even fill planes between a "focus city" and our "Crown Jewel" hub of the system. As for the PIT-ABE service, if they charged a fare that was reasonable and fair folks would flock to that flight. Of course it would be a poor performer if you charge a fare that looks like a fare to europe. I don't think that it's rocket science. Yep, southwest is running a bad operation. 🙄

 

[ABEFLYER]

You are assuming all are paying the full $444 fare to go only to PIT and back. How about the people only connecting in PIT to ultimately end up somewhere else, and who may be both (1) paying a lower overall fare, and (2) having a portion of that fare going towards getting them between PIT and their final destination. I would imagine that is the case with a majority of the people on the flight.

Actually the walk up fare is $608. The $444 is an advance purchase fare. The point I was making is that O&D is being priced right out of the market. Look at other large states, intrastate traffic is driven by low fares and people fly SWA, rather than drive when prices are low and convenient. US had the intrastate Pennsylvania market and is losing it, if they haven't already lost it.

As to the other poster that indicated the flights were empty in March, you're using Tempe's excel spreadsheet management-style. You can get it to say anything you want by saying the flights averaged only 40 per day, that number goes up close to a 50 percent load factor when you backout the St. Patrick''s day storm when for 3-4 days flights were cancelled--all with little O&D due to US's pricing.

 

[Bear96]

US had the intrastate Pennsylvania market and is losing it, if they haven't already lost it.

Perhaps there are more profitable opportunities on which US (LCC) can use its limited equipment and resources, and has left less profitable markets to others.

If you are suggesting that LCC is foregoing profitable opportunities within PA and instead is consciously choosing to use its equipment and resources on routes it knows to be less profitable, then I agree that what it is doing does not make sense. However, I doubt we have access to the sort of data necessary to make that judgement.

 

[Travelpro72]

I think Usairways has seen that they can't get away with charging (gouging) the travelling public with fares over $400.00 between PIT-PHL since WN entered the market. So they can now take their mainline aircraft and gouge on a different market and HIDE run from the competition as we always do. Put an rj on it. Yeah they are real money makers. 🙄