Will the company move the focus from PHL?

[deltawatch]

I think there will be big PHL downsizing. It will be set up based on point to point opportunities. There will be a couple of banks to feed flights west and a big international bank in the afternoon. Everything else point to point full of O/D.

 

[TheWatcher]

I think there will be big PHL downsizing. It will be set up based on point to point opportunities. There will be a couple of banks to feed flights west and a big international bank in the afternoon. Everything else point to point full of O/D.

That would be consistent with the trend of giving away market share and business.

 

[deltawatch]

No, it's an end to cramming as many flights into a city as you can, regardless of whether they make money, so the competition can't get in. A business plan that the government frowns on and therefor domed to fail.

 

[UWCactus]

It appears that philly has multiple problems, some of which can be controlled. Heavy traffic at peak times, flow control, taxiway restrictions are all areas that the airline has little control over. With late arrivals and tight connections due to the "Philly factor" which is the airport itself cannot be changed very easily but these problem exist and have to be dealth from the passenger perspective. These things make it much more important that the areas that can be controlled..such as, offloading bags in a timely manner, running conx timely, being available for marshalling and a general willingness to perform are things that an employee can have some control over, and this includes supervisors, staffing planners etc,. If we can reduce some of the controllable factors that creat havoc for the passenger, the uncontrollable may not be as painful.

 

[FutureUScapt]

No, it's an end to cramming as many flights into a city as you can, regardless of whether they make money, so the competition can't get in. A business plan that the government frowns on and therefor domed to fail.

Actually, Philadelphia was way underserved by most standards. US could have easily added more flights to several cities. Unfortunately, the airport could not sustain this kind of growth. It does not help the fact that US AND WN have added about 160 flights in the past 18 months

 

[Jimmy Neutron]

Can anybody reading this realize that US Airways's real problems only started after they pulled the northeast connecting traffic from PIT and moved it to PHL.
Think about it, we were doing bad enough at the time but when they really stated pulling that traffic from PIT it was like we fell off the cliff and nose dived straight to the bottom.
There were reasons that Ed Colodny built this airline into what it was and made the decision to put the hub in PIT.
It wasn't like he just fell off the turnip truck. He knew that trying to run all the connecting traffic through PHL just would not work, period.
And we all can clearly see that he was right. No one is saying that we need to completely pull out of PHL, that would be stupid. I think taht what needs to be done is to set the flt schedule up to pick up all the originating traffic, and only the originating traffic. The idea of bringing in people from all over the northeast and trying to connect them through PHL just doesn't make sense. so what you need to do is pull down some capacity in PHL, move it back to PIT where they can be comfortably transfered to their destinations without problems.
Lets face it, PIT is ranked one of the top 5 airports in the world and people love to fly in and connect there. This would smooth out the whole operation and give customers what they really want, a pleasant flying experience.

Read the article

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-re...s/s_209004.html

 

[barbeetantrums]

Can anybody reading this realize that US Airways's real problems only started after they pulled the northeast connecting traffic from PIT and moved it to PHL.
Think about it, we were doing bad enough at the time but when they really stated pulling that traffic from PIT it was like we fell off the cliff and nose dived straight to the bottom.
There were reasons that Ed Colodny built this airline into what it was and made the decision to put the hub in PIT.
It wasn't like he just fell off the turnip truck. He knew that trying to run all the connecting traffic through PHL just would not work, period.
And we all can clearly see that he was right. No one is saying that we need to completely pull out of PHL, that would be stupid. I think taht what needs to be done is to set the flt schedule up to pick up all the originating traffic, and only the originating traffic. The idea of bringing in people from all over the northeast and trying to connect them through PHL just doesn't make sense. so what you need to do is pull down some capacity in PHL, move it back to PIT where they can be comfortably transfered to their destinations without problems.
Lets face it, PIT is ranked one of the top 5 airports in the world and people love to fly in and connect there. This would smooth out the whole operation and give customers what they really want, a pleasant flying experience.

Read the article

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-re...s/s_209004.html

Thank you. I concur.

 

[SilentWarrior]

Just to add fuel to the fire. Some stats from the friendly folks at the Department of Transportation (BTS).

Ranking of major airports On-Time Departure (Year-to-date ending Oct 2005)

Rank		  Airport			 %
8	  St. Louis, MO (STL)	  83.04
9 	 Pittsburgh, PA (PIT) 	82.89
10 	Washington, DC (DCA) 	82.33
-------------------------------------------------------
31	   Chicago, IL (ORD)	  75.02
32 	  Atlanta, GA (ATL) 	 73.26
33 	  Philadelphia, PA(PHL)  70.84

Ranking of major airports On-Time Arrival (Year-to-date ending Oct 2005)

Rank		   Airport				   %
18	  Washington, DC (DCA)		   78.50
19 	 Pittsburgh, PA (PIT) 		  78.42
20 	 Orlando, FL (MCO) 			 77.89
-------------------------------------------------------
29	  Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL)	  71.00
30 	 Philadelphia, PA (PHL) 		70.74
31 	 New York, NY (JFK) 			70.44

Both of those links show rankings from the previous year as well.

 

[Finish or Ignore]

The only real way to "fix PHL" is to knock the whole thing down and start over....... Pelc. Fahnestock. Arkan. Stryker. Rhoderick. Those are some powerful names in US East's history, and none has been able to do it.

You forgot A.C.

 

[AstroLounge]

AC are you kidding me? HE was the official sh*t stirrer upper that caused an Uprising........or as they put it an "Unfortunate Meltdown".

 

[barbeetantrums]

AC are you kidding me? HE was the official sh*t stirrer upper that caused an Uprising........or as they put it an "Unfortunate Meltdown".

So was it an "uprising" or not enough staffing and equipment??? :huh:

 

[john john]

Heavy traffic at peak times, flow control can be eases if you get ride of some RJ’s and add some big jets. Sometimes I wonder what management is thinking with all the RJ’s they like to fly and problems we have with them. The Glass and gang plan(A.C.)this is the only gang in PHL.RJ's are the answer plan working?

 

[barbeetantrums]

HMM, care to enlighten us on the "Uprising" comment?

Since we have heard a non-stop drumbeat on here about all of the things that the company did to cause the "Meltdown" perhaps you'd care to elaborate on exactly what "uprising" you're referring to. The DOT report is pretty clear regarding placement of blame. Are you saying that Chiames and Glass were right in their assessment? If so why wait until now to bring it up?

I am a bit confused, myself. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip.