BoeingBoy
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Business Leaders Launch Airline Plan
- Thread starter BoeingBoy
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Columbia blue
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It's a move they have to make. If US Airways does fold, or even continues downsizing, PIT will be in a world of hurt. Might as well see who you can attract to make up for the loss of flights.
nycbusdriver
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Now that the airline they loved to hate for decades is about to go away forever, they suddenly get religion and realize the importance of good air service they took for granted for all that time.
Now they are about to find out just how unimportant PIT is in the big scheme of convenient air travel.
Now they are about to find out just how unimportant PIT is in the big scheme of convenient air travel.
"Bayer employees spent about $800,000 last year on 500 international flights to and from Pittsburgh, said spokesman Kit Newton. About 70 percent of those flights were to the company's headquarters in Germany."
I think this answers the question of whether the PIT-FRA route was profitable. If this is the spending by the high roller on the route, it comes out to about 1 ticket a day. Not going to sustain the service that way.
I think this answers the question of whether the PIT-FRA route was profitable. If this is the spending by the high roller on the route, it comes out to about 1 ticket a day. Not going to sustain the service that way.
mrfish3726
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Voids will be filled, great move for SWA. Wish them the best of luck!
PIT will always have air service, no need to fear. What they won't have is nonstop flights to all of the smaller cities they now do. That's a fact. And, if that's all Bayer is spending to fly to FRA, I'm surprised the flight wasn't dropped years ago.
BoeingBoy
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One aspect of any service that's easy to forget is cargo - out of sight out of mind.
In March (the latest available from BTS) PIT-FRA carried 859,392 pounts of freight and FRA-PIT carried 1,012,482 pounds.
And just for info purposes, the pax count was 6131 PIT-FRA and 6476 FRA-PIT.
Jim
In March (the latest available from BTS) PIT-FRA carried 859,392 pounts of freight and FRA-PIT carried 1,012,482 pounds.
And just for info purposes, the pax count was 6131 PIT-FRA and 6476 FRA-PIT.
Jim
See, this is what happens when I skim...somehow I thought those were annual numbers, so I figured that 6000 was way too few for that route...by about a factor of ten.
Guess my instincts were right, but my skimming skills were not. 😉
Guess my instincts were right, but my skimming skills were not. 😉
nycbusdriver
Veteran
mrfish3726 said:
Yup. I hear Bayer is buying SWA additional fuel tanks for a few SWA 737's for the PIT-FRA run that they will SORELY miss.
BoeingBoy said:
I'd bet if US Airways survives they'll still do pretty well out of PIT without much competion from some LCC. Didn't US Airways announce they would continue to offer service to 28 of PIT's top 30 destinations? Implement GoFares between PIT and those 28 markets and they'll keep out Southwest, jetblue, ATA, and AirTran from head to head completion in those markets.
Even out of cities like RDU and CLE Southwest only flies to 8 and 6 destination non-stop.
GadgetFreak
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The city elders of PIT underestimate the importance of US to their recovery after the downsizing of the steel industry. The difference between PIT and say Harrisburg was US. If that goes PIT will have airline service but nowhere near what it has now. Not only will it not have nonstops to small cities it wont have nonstops to anywhere but a few hubs like ORD, DTW and CVG. Want to fly to Europe? One or two connections. It will become one of those sort of difficult places to get to. It will be a real hit on the city as far as business development and retention. I was talking to a guy from CLT on a flight to LGA earlier this week and he was commenting on how stupid PIT was in this regard while people from CLT government sat down and worked out a deal everyone was happy with the help US and keeps the flights going into CLT.
