Pit O&d Traffic On Upswing

[BoeingBoy]

Posted on Sun, May. 02, 2004

Pittsburgh airport sees increase in originating travelers

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH - The number of people who begin their trips at Pittsburgh International Airport grew 27 percent from 1993 to last year, according to the Allegheny County Airport Authority.

Article

Jim

ps - seems some other carriers are seeing a drop in "per head" costs thanks to good ole US Airways.

 

[TomBascom]

Posted on Sun, May. 02, 2004

Pittsburgh airport sees increase in originating travelers

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH - The number of people who begin their trips at Pittsburgh International Airport grew 27 percent from 1993 to last year, according to the Allegheny County Airport Authority.

Article

Jim

ps - seems some other carriers are seeing a drop in "per head" costs thanks to good ole US Airways.

Percentage growth does not necessarily translate into growth of traffic. This could as easily be a case of O&D customers decreasing while connecting traffic decreased even faster... Especially given US' reductions in service at PIT.

You can prove just about anything with percentages and averages...

 

[BoeingBoy]

Tom,

Except for a couple of things...

A 27% increase in O&D traffic (albeit over a decade) is an increase (3.5 Mil vs 2.8 Mil), period.

AMR more than doubling their originating traffic at PIT is impressive, though I guess I could be argued that some of those folks rode into PIT on U (depends on how the numbers were derived).

Jim

 

[TomBascom]

Tom,

Except for a couple of things...

A 27% increase in O&D traffic (albeit over a decade) is an increase (3.5 Mil vs 2.8 Mil), period.

AMR more than doubling their originating traffic at PIT is impressive, though I guess I could be argued that some of those folks rode into PIT on U (depends on how the numbers were derived).

Jim

You're right.

Anyone know what the overall increase in airtravel was for the same period?

 

[BoeingBoy]

According to BTS, in 1993 there were just over 468.3 million enplanements vs 595.6 million in 2001 (the last year in their March 2004 update of "National Transportation Statistics").

That equals 27.18%.

I'll try to find later numbers.

Jim

 

[BoeingBoy]

OK, here's 2003 enplanements...

587.8 million, or 25.52% over 1993.

Jim

 

[BoeingBoy]

To add context to the above...

These are 1992 vs 2002 enplanement numbers, the latest I can find at BTS by airport.

PIT
1992 7,528,104
2002 8,582,058
14.00% increase

CLT
1992 10,154,889
2002 8,239,025
18.87% decrease

PHL
1992 10,323,655
2002 6,968,466
32.50% decrease

Jim

 

[Rob]

Dunno how useful the last 10 years is to today's problems, but in the first quarter of 2004, CLE reported about a 6% traffic increase - with a similar economy, PIT probably did as well.

 

[TomBascom]

Jim,

Any idea what the O&D numbers for CLT & PHL were for the same period? Did they grow faster or slower than PIT?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Tom,

The numbers I posted for 92 vs 02 are the closest I've found in one place. Presumably one could dig thru BTS old data looking for the (then) current 93 numbers for each airport (they publish the top 50 airports), but I haven't taken the time to do that (and see if it's available that far back).

I'll take another look as time permits.

Jim

ps - the BTS site is at www.bts.gov

 

[BoeingBoy]

Tom,

I think I see the problem. The BTS "Top 50 Airports" compare enplanements over 10 years. Apparently the breakdown by airport for 2003 is not available from them yet. So it may be able to get the BTS data for 1993, but not for 2003 yet.

Jim

 

[TomBascom]

Tom,

I think I see the problem. The BTS "Top 50 Airports" compare enplanements over 10 years. Apparently the breakdown by airport for 2003 is not available from them yet. So it may be able to get the BTS data for 1993, but not for 2003 yet.

Jim

Maybe I need another cup of coffee and not to beat a dead horse but this is interesting stuff...

Don't "enplanements" include connecting passengers? I'm wondering what the O&D traffic growth has been like at each of the big hubs.

The '92 - '02 numbers show PIT slightly up while PHL and CLT fell. I suspect that that would be because PIT grew a lot of connecting traffic through the '90s due to the new terminal and even with the massive capacity reductions of '02 remained slightly up from '92.

This suggests to me that PITs O&D is essentially treading water:

According to BTS, in 1993 there were just over 468.3 million enplanements vs 595.6 million in 2001 (the last year in their March 2004 update of "National Transportation Statistics").

That equals 27.18%.

That's a 27% increase in air travel nationwide over the same period that PIT O&D grew by 27%.