You know it totally blows that we have such Short Sighted Morons running this Company.....I mean we are actually making money again and we are running the Airline like it's on it's last leg! What gives? Are these guys really that incompetant? As a LCC now as they say....we should be in PIT with more flights.....one would think? :huh:
One would, and yet every excuse is made not to do so.
I find it interesting that most days when I arrive at work, the parking lots from Short Term all the way out into Extended tend to be full of automobiles. Assuming that 1) the car rental companies are not parking in those lots, which appears to be correct, 2) connecting passengers would not have cars in those lots, for obvious reasons, and 3) the employees have their own lot or park off of airport property, which they do, then I would deduce that those cars and trucks and motocycles and the occasional odd horse belong to......yes, you guessed it......ORIGINATING PASSENGERS. And that doesn't include all of those passengers that who also park off of airport property or get dropped off at the curb.
Did I mention that the ACAA has shown an upward trend in traffic and enplanements at PIT recently as well? I didn't? Oh....well they have.
Parker always tries to find an additional piece of information to twist into propoganda against adding flights to PIT, and yet he never backs up his claims with any hard data. Take for example his claim that PIT passengers pay less than other cities for their tickets on US flights: Maybe he's correct and maybe he's not. I see a lot of business travelers in PIT in the security lines, and I'm sure some of them must pay big bucks for same-day travel versus booking two weeks or more in advance or waiting for that great advertisment in the Travel section of the Post-Gazette.
PIT also tends to have fewer cancelled flights and fewer misconnect passengers late in the day. I would assume that fact, which is easily verifiable, would translate into fewer vouchers for hotels and food, and also a greater chance that such passengers wouldn't have to endure the nightmare which is being rebooked for the next day on a flight (especially if that or subsequent flights are full). I would venture a guess that this, in turn, improves the revenue at such a station.
Did I mention missed bags? PIT has the least. The agents in baggage reroute are very good at documenting inbound missed baggage, and the management audits outbound flights DAILY. Fewer missed bags has to equal greater revenue from such a station.
What's left to argue? $35,000 gate leases? $20+ per square foot rent? $2,500 parking fees? How did PIT get to such a point? Jim Roddey? Kent George? Dave Siegel? David Bronner? Who knows who fired the first shot? What I do know is that if there was any meaningful negotiation between US and the ACAA, prices for such items might become far more reasonable. But alas! No such luck, as least not yet as far as I know.
Yes, the arguments for and against rehubbing PIT continue, and someone will bait me at some point and say, "PRINCE, get over it already. PIT will never be a (fill in the blank) again. It's like SHARES/SCEPTRE/glassware/inflight meals/et cetera..."
They may be right. I may be crazy. But it just might be the airport that they're looking for.
