Airtran Taking Over Us In Pit?

[ClueByFour]

I'm not so sure. If U serves PIT's top ten markets plus some other U and UAL hubs with Go Fares, THAT would more likely keep an LCC at bay.... that is IF U has costs capable of financially sustaining Go Fares. I admit, I'm assuming Go Fares are actually LCC type fares.

The Catch-22 is that US won't bring GoFares to any market that does not face LCC competition. Thus far, you only see them in markets (and yes, DCA is the same market as IAD and to a certain extent BWI) and on routes that LCCs serve.

CCY is too heavy on old school thinking to do what, say, LUV does--offer low fares even when they own a market. Witness BWI (or LAX or PHX or LAS or DAL....)

I hope they prove me wrong, but I don't expect they will.

 

[javaboy]

cal in ewr had 70% plus when people's showed up

aa at lax neck and neck with dal between the two had 70% of departures just saying swa went into solidly held airports which i thought supported argument that's all

in 1989 this was a true statement ......
80% of all airline traffic originated or terminated in north america, 80% of that number began or terminated their trips east of the mississippi, 80 % of all callsigns used east of the mississippi began with the words USAIR....in otherwords usair had the most market presence in the largest portion of comercial airline travel. why the company went from 225 to 440+ to 279 aircraft is directly due to management decisions. likewise same period both UAL AND AMR went from 385+ planes to over 700 now back to 600 ish....again due to management decisions.

now i submit who's running the airline and whats is the 1,3,5year business plans? even middle management should be able to have a basic answer to that....the company is not suffering from rediculously high cost but more a complete lack of direction ...

 

[jB-Rocks]

I don't think any LCC will dive into PIT bigtime. The is not much O&D traffic out of PIT.
Plus PIT has one of the highest Pax Facility charge of most airports...last I heard was about $10 or $11 bucks per passenger. Most other airports are about $3 or $4. I may be wrong. If I am, please correct me.

Best of luck to all at US Airways..

Repectfully

 

[PITbull]

delete

 

[PITbull]

Except that they can't make a profit in PIT.

Not from you, though. 🙂 I pointed that one out six months ago.

That's because we are losing our customer base. There are folks lining up everywhere and not enough personnel to handle the normal operation let alone any type of cancellation or weather.


Yea, you MAY have pointed that SW would be coming into PIT, but nobody remembers your prophecy.

 

[WorldTraveler]

It realliy can't be used as an excuse that PIT doesn't have enough O&D traffic to support a hub the size US needs to operate. CVG and PIT are about the same size for the local cities and yet DL has managed to build a very large hub for a city of that size. There aren't very many cities with over 100 destinations served nonstop by a single carrier and their regional partner or that have five international destinations nonstop but CVG has both. I'm not sure what all of the differences are other than a boatload of RJs at CVG and the DL terminal was built for a fraction of what US spent at PIT. I don't CVG's profitability for DL but they apparently are willing to continue pumping resources into it.
MEM is a much smaller city and hub than either CVG or PIT and NW is apparently willing to stick with it.

 

[FutureCEO]

The problem in PIT isn't the market, it's the airline. For instance, look at Delta in CVG. That airport has been over 20 million in passengers for many years and the O&D from CVG is about 1 million less than PIT, why? Delta has a strategy and there are utilizing the CVG asset to its full potential. The cost/passenger figure is accurate but other airports are much higher, see SFO or DEN. In my opnion the whole cost/passenger analysis is overblown in the context of what makes up an airlines cost structure, and of course the cost/passenger in PIT is higher than what it used to be, less flights equals less passengers. There are less people with which to pass this cost on to.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Also, it is a flawed strategy to think that US can survive solely by serving the top 10 (or whatever number) of markets from PIT. Once an other carrier of any variety gets into PIT, US' ability to defend its business decreases with each passing day. Allowing any other carrier in is tantamount to be willing to walk away from everything.

 

[PITbull]

I don't think any LCC will dive into PIT bigtime. The is not much O&D traffic out of PIT.
Plus PIT has one of the highest Pax Facility charge of most airports...last I heard was about $10 or $11 bucks per passenger. Most other airports are about $3 or $4. I may be wrong. If I am, please correct me.

Best of luck to all at US Airways..

Repectfully

jB,

Pittsburgh Airport has high pax charge because U has downsized the flights out of pit so profoundly that the charge per pax has increased in order to service the debt on the bonds.

Congressman Murphy met with the U local labor ocalition in PIT three months ago and said that there are over 1,000,000 pax out of the tri-state area that travel to CLE or where ever else they can to pick up a reasonable fare to fly to their destination according to the study they did.

So, its all in who you speak with. If you talk to U management, they will tell you there is not enough O&D traffic to warrant increasing flights. That's a strategy for negotiations IMO.

 

[mweiss]

...the company is not suffering from rediculously high cost but more a complete lack of direction ...

I fail to see how you can separate the two.

 

[mweiss]

That's because we are losing our customer base.

You're losing your customer base because people drive to CLE for lower fares.

Yea, you MAY have pointed that SW would be coming into PIT, but nobody remembers your prophecy.

Well, maybe now they will. 😉

 

[ClueByFour]

I don't think any LCC will dive into PIT bigtime. The is not much O&D traffic out of PIT.

"Bigtime" remains to be seen, but as has been pointed out, PIT enjoys higher O&D than CLT (US hub), CVG (DL hub), and is right around CLE (and if US had the LUV presence that CLE has, they'd probably be even as the folks who drive to CLE and CAK would probably choose PIT).

Now that the debt is going to be reduced, someone is going to make a run at US. It's just a question of who and when (eg, before or after the hypothetical future Chapter 11 filing).

 

[mweiss]

Yea, you MAY have pointed that SW would be coming into PIT, but nobody remembers your prophecy.

I looked it up...my first mention was in this post. But I was wrong...it was four months ago, not six. It just seemed that long.

 

[coolflyingfool]

If SWA can move in to PHL and get 41 flights in there in less than 5 months, they can do it in any where, including PIT.

 

[USA320Pilot]

USFlyer:

USFlyer said: "I continue to remain fascinated by this notion that some LCC will enter PIT in a large way after US dismantles PIT as a hub. There is NOTHING keeping any one of those LCCs from moving in NOW. There's plenty of gate and counter space. WN will be in PIT some day, and they will be in CLT some day. But, US is certainly not stopping them at this point."

USA320Pilot comments: I agree. The primary reason the LCC's do not invade PIT id due to the cost of operations and poor O&D traffic. If the ACAA had acted sooner to pay down the airport debt then US Airways may have kept the hub and created an operation similar in scope to Delta Air Lines in CVG.

Moreover, if US Airways has a competitive cost structure with a CASM of about 7.5 cents, the company will not care if a LCC invades PIT because the Arlington-based carrier can the match the LCC on cost and price.

As I understand it, the PIT pull down will begin in November and be complete in early 2005, when the city will become a focus city. Flying will be transferred to LGA and BOS with DCA seeing EMB-170 growth.

DCA is a federally controlled slot airport and the company cannot add more mainline flights without additional slots. However, due to recently passed legislation the airline can substitute 70-seat RJ (EMB-170) aircraft for 50-seat RJs to increase ASM's and provide a competitive product, both in comfort and price.

Separately, the situation is different in LGA where the slots are controlled by the Port Authority of NY and NJ. According to station management personnel, US Airways could begin Transformation Plan point-to-point flying from LGA in November and increase this service during the winter and spring. The company can exchange RJ/Express slots for mainline flights without Port approval.

In Boston, there are no restrictions and there will be increased mainline flights.

In my opinion, PIT could see more 50-seat RJ and MDA EMB-170 service replace mainline flights as the new business plan continues to unfold.

There is no question that PIT has one of the best airports in the world with great ATC flow, but the cost of operation is too high and if my memory serves me correctly the revenue O&D is number 17 in the country.

Respectfully,

USA320Pilot