Another Reason Why The Pit Hub Will Be Gone

[USA320Pilot]

Pittsburgh's renaissance in jeopardy

Pittsburgh has run budget deficits for more than a decade

PITTSBURGH (USA Today) - On the surface, this aging industrial city looks as vibrant as ever.

See Story

Respectfully,

USA320Pilot

 

[BoeingBoy]

From the article...

"Philadelphia has a deficit that could reach $144 million this year."

Guess the PHL hub is going too.

Jim

 

[delldude]

get off it USA320Pilot

 

[USA320Pilot]

If Pittsburgh had 4 million people like Philadelphia than it would stay a hub, but with 1 million people the area cannot provide sufficient O&D traffic in today's low yield environment.

From a business perspective, the company needs to fly its aircraft where it can make money.

Do I like it? No, especially since I live near Pittsburgh, but I understand the business decision.

Respectfully,

USA320Pilot

 

[Piedmont4US]

If Pittsburgh had 4 million people like Philadelphia than it would stay a hub, but with 1 million people the County cannot provide sufficient O&D traffic in today's low yield environment.

From a business perspective, the company needs to fly its aircraft where it can make money.

Do I like it? No, especially since I live near Pittsburgh, but I understand the business decision.

Respectfully,

USA320Pilot

PIT is a huge part of why US is sinking, I'm sorry but i shouldn't have to fly to PIT from LGA to get where I want to go. I might as well fly DL, AA, or even B6. The NY market is more profitable then PIT nowadays, isn't it?

At least AA knew that STL wasn't worth it.

I still applaud US for signing for only 10 gates.

 

[ClueByFour]

If Pittsburgh had 4 million people like Philadelphia than it would stay a hub, but with 1 million people the area cannot provide sufficient O&D traffic in today's low yield environment.

From a business perspective, the company needs to fly its aircraft where it can make money.

Do I like it? No, especially since I live near Pittsburgh, but I understand the business decision.

Respectfully,

USA320Pilot

Stop drinking the kool-aide from CCY.

Absent a merger, there is no place for US to go that has the necessarily facilities to deploy a hub that has PIT's O&D level or lacks a significant LCC presence.

Further, US enjoys a revenue premium at PIT due to the monopoly status of the hub that it is fiscally unable to replicate anywhere else.

The revenue environment at PHL will tank starting in May. Even if we assume that your theory of a merger has any credence, and we harken back to what I said 6 months ago (that US becomes the feed for the UA presence at IAD), it still matters not, since Independence Air will tank domestic yields at IAD.

Finally, if US leaves fares will drop and other airlines will take up the slack. Witness BNA and RDU after AA pulled hubs out of both markets.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Clue,

You are correct - both PIT & CLT enjoy a significant yield advantage over PHL. Not to say we should close PHL and rebuild PIT, but the company needs to decide if PIT is going to be a hub or just the end of a spoke.

Jim

 

[USA320Pilot]

Pittsburgh is unprofitable and will be excess to the pending merger. Unless something comes out of the blue like "Virgin USA", then there is even more reason today than before to believe there will be a merger with United Airlines.

However, one of the only questions remaining is who will be the survivor?

What's interesting is...it could be either company.

Respectfully,

USA320Pilot

 

[ClueByFour]

Pittsburgh is unprofitable and will be excess to the pending merger.

Please provide something to back this up. I doubt seriously that such data actually exists.

High costs do not equal unprofitable, especially when the fares are high enough to support the cost--make no mistake about it, US passes the entire cost of doing business at PIT along to the customer.

Little Dave suffers from a big ego, and thought that the ACAA would roll right over for US. It did not happen. You will note that US is still operating a hub in Pittsburgh, despite the threat to pull it at the turn of the year.

 

[BoeingBoy]

If PIT is both unprofitable and excess, all the more reason to stop dilly-dallying around and close it as a hub. The last thing we need is to be bleeding cash where we don't need to be.

Jim

 

[ClueByFour]

If PIT is both unprofitable and excess, all the more reason to stop dilly-dallying around and close it as a hub. The last thing we need is to be bleeding cash where we don't need to be.

Jim

Another question to which there is no logical answer, except......

US needs to keep the hub.

 

[FutureCEO]

The Pittsburgh hub situation needs to be viewed in its proper context. I think US Airways wants the hub to look as economically unsound as possible so as to extract as much as posiible from Allegheny County (most agree with this view). However, I think people are jumping to conclusions about Pittsburgh and its "bad" O&D traffic situation without looking for what the facts are. According to gov't data the following numbers represent total 2002 O&D passengers for Pittsburgh and two similar type hubs.

Pittsburgh- 5,064,640
Charlotte- 4,073,090
Cincinnati- 3,492,180

The problem with Pittsburgh has little to do with the demographics of the Pittsburgh market when compared to other hubs. The problem in Pittsburgh is mostly due to US Airways' inability to create an innovative new approach to its existing business model and market it effectively. If most agree that you can't "shrink yourself to profitability" how does abandoning the Pittsburgh hub make US Airways a more lean profitable machine that is able to take on the encroaching LCC's?

 

[youngblood]

FutureCEO,

Could't agree with you more. Perhaps you can speak to our local goverment officials about attracting new business, holding on to old ones, and tax structure.

Sincerely,

A PIT employee

 

[totobird]

Last night I was shown the master flight schedules for January, February and March.
January's schedule has 120 departues.
February's schedule shows 112 deparures (loss of 8 departures).
March schedule appears on sight to show a loss of several more flights.
We did not have time to count the number of departures last night. Hopefully today we can get a count but it appears the number will be lower.

So much for maintaining flight and employee numbers in Pit.

Could it be the loss of mainline flights are the beginning of what MidAtlantic will be flying ?
Just a thought.

 

[700UW]

A320, your horse is dead and on its way to the clue factory, how much longer and in how many was are you gonna try to kill it?