Southwest Airline To Begin Pittsburgh Service

[notlayedoffyet]

US turns down the 263 mil. LUV takes it, starts flying from PIT. US to stay competitive then increses flying but at a loss since they don't have that 263 Mil... Smooth....

If it's anything up to and including the $263.9 million dollars or so they offered US in Chapter 11 version 1, I'd say all is fair that ends fair.

I've been saying this would happen on this forum ever since US pulled the 11th hour crud on PIT the first time.

[post="235886"][/post]​

 

[wings396]

Southwest announces PIT in MAY 05 - What is the US response?

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050105/daw025_1.html

[post="235852"][/post]​

The response, you ask??? That is easy....We will run them out of town with the Armada of RJ's. If that isn't enough we will finish them off with MDA and their dependable fleet of 20 170's......

 

[pitflyer]

I'd be curious to see what sort of aid package was given to Southwest. The latest PG article states an 18 year lease on the gates along with 14 flights a day to start. I got to think that that initial 14 will include PHL and BWI. Then a flight or two to LAS, PHX and/or MCO. I wonder if they'll fly their own planes to MDW or just codeshare on ATA.

 

[28yrsnojob]

what day are they closing

 

[a320av8r]

I wonder if they will do like they did in PHL.
Not hire locals and import all of there help.

 

[ClueByFour]

US Airways offers its GoFares in about 25% of its markets and plans to implement this in almost all domestic markets shortly, once the company has a competitve cost structure in place, which could occur next week.

So all the concessions thus far don't help without the IAM on board? If that difference is key to being "competitive" than US has real problems.

What's interesting is that Southwest and the ACAA made this announcement almost simultaneously with the conference call where Dan Onarato and Ed Rendell are speaking wiht Bruce Lakefield about keeping the PIT reservation and maintenance facilities in service. In my opinion, especially with INT offering a financial incentive to keep reservations in NC, this Southwest move may cement the company's decision to move more of its operations to NC.

If INT and/or the state of North Carolina want to give money to an airline with a history of cutting and running (see the PIT midfield terminal), that's an issue that the taxpayers of NC should consider, especially given that industry sources are now saying that US is dead (see http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-0...ittsburgh_x.htm, particularly "That's the nail in the coffin. It's the end of US Airways," said Michael Boyd, president of The Boyd Group, an aviation consulting firm in Colorado. "There is just no way an airline like Southwest is going to go into Pittsburgh unless it knows US Airways is through and it knows there's going to be a huge gap there.").

PIT and the state of Pennsylvania are apparently not going to be stupid, twice. It's no coincidence that US torched both, and now finds LUV "bookending" the Commonwealth.

 

[EyeInTheSky]

Clearly Delta's announcement about lower fares and now Southwest going into PIT makes it quite clear that they're out to kill US Airways.

 

[CanyonBlue]

I wonder if they will do like they did in PHL.
Not hire locals and import all of there help.

[post="235911"][/post]​

You're right, we opened with a majority of transfers. As is customary, when introducing "Luv" to a new city. Now, there are close to 40% new-hires from PHL onboard. Many of them with USAirways ties. We're proud to have them and proud to offer service to the "City of Brotherly Love". Hopefully, the "Steel City" will be as receptive.

As a fellow airline-industry employee, I wish no other "airliner" anything but the best.

 

[mweiss]

...Southwest going into PIT makes it quite clear that they're out to kill US Airways.

[post="235926"][/post]​

I dunno...looks more like WN sees an opportunity for growth, and one of those side effects is that it'll kill US Airways. WN, like all airlines, depends upon growth to support their cost structure.

 

[funguy2]

It does not matter if it's FLYi in IAD, jetBlue in BOS/JFK, Southwest in PHL, or AirTran in BWI, US Airways must have a competitive cost structure to compete in a rapidly changing industry.

I couldn't agree more. However, US Airways has not made many actions which contribute to a lower cost structure or lower CASM. Consider:

1. The airline still has at least two aircraft for every mission from A330/B767 to CRJ/ERJ.

2. The airline has squandered two rounds of employee concessions which had minimal impact on CASM. Certainly, fuel costs are partly responsible. So is a management team that has gone out and ordered 85 70-seat jets with higher CASM than mainline aircraft.

3. Where is that high utilization schedule we keep hearing about? Oh yeah, its planned for February... We'll keep waiting...

4. The quasi-hub PIT... not quite a focus city... Not quite a hub. With 4 flights/day to BUF, SYR, ABE, MDT, and multiple daily flights to IND, BNA, SDF, CMH, PIT is certainly still being scheduled like a hub, no matter what they tell you... If you want to see a successful focus city, look at DL and AA at CMH, or AA at RDU, or FL at PHL, or NW at IND and MKE. They are not flying feeder routes, they are flying to places people want to go, like BOS, LGA, Florida, west coast. Nobody is flying CMH-SDF or RDU-SYR or IND-BUF.

5. The FLL experiment... which hasn't started yet, and doesn't really lower costs... It might be a place to hide where LCC's are not flying yet... But its no answer to lowering costs.

6. The X-Mas/PHL Bag Fiasco... just goes to show that cutting head-count is not necessarily a path to lower costs.

I could go on, but why...

Meanwhile, more nails in the coffin today:

~ DAL's new fare structure
~ LUV announces entry to PIT
~ JBLU announces 2 new routes from BOS to be made public on Friday

Tick tock...

 

[deano]

I dunno...looks more like WN sees an opportunity for growth, and one of those side effects is that it'll kill US Airways. WN, like all airlines, depends upon growth to support their cost structure.

[post="235935"][/post]​

Yep, U’s sorry state had nothing to do with it, even though LUV said last year Pit was not being considered. But, now that U is bleeding profusely all of a sudden they make an appearance. Duh

Their cost structure requires taking will be over the planet, according to you, if you consider what their employees earn.

 

[BoeingBoy]

You're right, we opened with a majority of transfers. As is customary, when introducing "Luv" to a new city. Now, there are close to 40% new-hires from PHL onboard. Many of them with USAirways ties.

[post="235927"][/post]​

Thanks for confirming something I heard 6 months ago - current employees get dibs on the new station before local hiring. Makes sense. Also the number of former U people getting hired tallies with what I've heard about BWI and other places - so much for the "smell of US Airways" making our folks unemployable at other airlines, as some claim.

Now to the meat of the matter....

Does anyone know how many gates LUV will start out with and which concourse?

As for this reducing our costs in PIT, I guess if we're giving up gates (or having them taken from us) that will reduce costs (something I've said should have been done long ago). On the other hand, that mythical "per head charge" is merely cost divided by passengers handled, so if we lose passengers by a larger percentage than we reduce costs, our "cost per head" goes up.

In addition, PIT has been our highest yield hub (or sorta-hub), so anything that reduces yields hurts and surely this will reduce yields to some degree - look what's happened at PHL with a relatively small number of LUV flights (our lowest yield hub despite all that O&D).

Sure seems to me that you have to live in a fairy-tale world to see this as good news.

Jim

 

[deano]

Does anyone know how many gates LUV will start out with and which concourse?

[post="235944"][/post]​

The news media in Pit is saying that LUV's top management is silent on these kinds of details therefore anything posted on here is fantasy until they, “LUVâ€￾ themselves release that info. All that "is" known, they are coming in March.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Thanks, deano. Here's all I've been able to find from the latest updates:

Kelly said Southwest would announce its Pittsburgh schedule and fares before April. He said Southwest would begin with fewer than five gates and a "modest" number of daily flights. The airline typically begins in new cities with one or two gates and 10 to 15 flights.

From AP update #3

Jim

 

[mweiss]

Yep, U’s sorry state had nothing to do with it

[post="235941"][/post]​

I didn't say it had nothing to do with it. I said that WN wasn't doing it with the intent of killing US. They didn't set out to kill US in California, at BWI, in Florida, or even in PHL. And they're not setting out to do it in PIT.

Their cost structure requires taking will be over the planet, according to you, if you consider what their employees earn.

I'm not quite so egotistical to believe that it's "according to me." Several other people, whose opinions I highly respect, have the same opinion.

Taking over the planet, which you intended to be hyperbole, is sort of what would be necessary...and even then they'd have to find a way to keep the average wage from increasing faster than the increase in average productivity per employee. Or maybe they could start interplanetary travel.

Ever hear of Ponzi schemes?