US Airways Intrastate Express Service

[US AIRWAYS FAN]

Remember when Florida had intrastate express service? Which of the express carriers serviced the INTRASTATE market for Florida.

Are there any other states that used to have INTRASTATE service that US served that US no longer serves (intrastate)? Which express carrier served it.

I remember flying back in the day one time I had to fly MCO, TPA, MIA all on express.

I also remember that US use to fly MIA to a couple of the islands right off the coast of MIA (not the Keys)

 

[wings396]

At one time Piedmont operated the "Florida Shuttle" using the F-28 fleet. They would rotate the 1000 & 4000 types between Upstate NY and FLA to match seasonal demand. This was just another one of those silly markets that US Air felt they didn't need to serve after the merger in 1989.
As far as the Express service, I think that they had Henson/Piedmont operate some DH-8's in Fla. and out to the Bahamas.

 

[nycbusdriver]

Remember when Florida had intrastate express service? Which of the express carriers serviced the INTRASTATE market for Florida.

Are there any other states that used to have INTRASTATE service that US served that US no longer serves (intrastate)? Which express carrier served it.

I remember flying back in the day one time I had to fly MCO, TPA, MIA all on express.

I also remember that US use to fly MIA to a couple of the islands right off the coast of MIA (not the Keys)

USAir used to have very successful Florida intrastate MAINLINE service (which they inherited from the old Piedmont.) It was done with a fleet of dedicated F-28's which never left Florida. Then, in their arrogance, the USAir management decided they had a better idea and decided to mess with it. It quickly lost reliability, and then ridership. Not soon after, SWA saw the opportunity to simply move in and take what was left of it away from USAir. And now SWA has very successful intrastate Florida service. USAir responded with using express Dash-8s for the service, but they could never really compete with SWA 737s.

USAir also inherited a very successful California intrastate MAINLINE service from (from the old PSA.) In like manner, they proceeded to mismanage that operation of MD-80 and BAE-146s into oblivion and guess who stepped in to take up the slack? Right, SWA now has a lock on California intrastate service.

 

[tadjr]

Since 1986 Florida service has been operated by TransAir/Southern Express (went bankrupt the day it was to start and never flew for PI)/Piedmont(Henson)/Mesa/FloridaGulf/Air Midwest at various times using Cessna 402s/Casa212s/(Embraer Banderiante)/Beech 1900s/Embraer 120s/Dash 8s. The most popular and long lasting though was the Piedmont (Henson) DH8s.

 

[YVINTERN]

Republic used to have a daily E170 running EYW-FLL-MCO-DCA-MCO-FLL-EYW and at some point did EYW-FLL-TPA-DCA-TPA-FLL-EYW as well.

 

[aredeeyou22]

USAir used to have very successful Florida intrastate MAINLINE service (which they inherited from the old Piedmont.) It was done with a fleet of dedicated F-28's which never left Florida. Then, in their arrogance, the USAir management decided they had a better idea and decided to mess with it. It quickly lost reliability, and then ridership. Not soon after, SWA saw the opportunity to simply move in and take what was left of it away from USAir. And now SWA has very successful intrastate Florida service. USAir responded with using express Dash-8s for the service, but they could never really compete with SWA 737s.

USAir also inherited a very successful California intrastate MAINLINE service from (from the old PSA.) In like manner, they proceeded to mismanage that operation of MD-80 and BAE-146s into oblivion and guess who stepped in to take up the slack? Right, SWA now has a lock on California intrastate service.

So USAir just gave up and ran? It had nothing to do with the fact that USAir's cost structure was through the roof as compared to WN and other competitors? Didn't the PSA employees receive a healthy raise when they were folded into USAir? Would you have been willing to drop to the then LCC cost structures of the 80's to keep these services running?

I am not saying it wasn't mismanagement, but labor/ operating costs played a part as well.

 

[phllax]

California was served with Trans States J31's.
Kansas and Louisiana were served with Air Midwest B1900's
Florida was served with Piedmont Dash 8's and then Air Midwest B1900's.

 

[TheMike]

I think we should go back to flying 737s from GSO-INT. 😉

 

[nycbusdriver]

So USAir just gave up and ran? It had nothing to do with the fact that USAir's cost structure was through the roof as compared to WN and other competitors? Didn't the PSA employees receive a healthy raise when they were folded into USAir? Would you have been willing to drop to the then LCC cost structures of the 80's to keep these services running?

I am not saying it wasn't mismanagement, but labor/ operating costs played a part as well.

In the case of the Piedmont merger, it was management's MISmanagement of labor/operating costs that played a big part. At Piedmont, a large percentage of the ground work force was part-time with a reasonably good hourly rate and the only perk was free travel. And folks lined up to get those jobs with the thought that someday they would be a full-time employee of a company that really cared about their employees and customers. When USAir came on the scene, the cool northern efficient way of doing business was to have a mostly full-time work force with higher hourly rates and full benefits. So, almost overnight, the Piedmont part-timers found themselves full-time employees and living large. Bravo for them. But it was moves like this that started USAir bleeding red ink (along with the inevitable...but totally unexpected on the part of Crystal City...appearance of Southwest Airlines in the northeast.)

I think we should go back to flying 737s from GSO-INT. 😉

Piedmont actually flew 727s on that route. Granted, it was a repositioning flight, but it was done. They also flew 737s from ORF to PHF...the shortest scheduled jet flight on record, I believe.

 

[DCaf]

But it was moves like this that started USAir bleeding red ink (along with the inevitable...but totally unexpected on the part of Crystal City...appearance of Southwest Airlines in the northeast.)

It wasn't unexpected at all. I recall at a roadshow Wolfe and Gangwal saying "they're coming, let's get ready" (paraphrasing). I believe parity plus 1% ensued, along with Metrojet, other measures, but it wasn't enough. Crystal City can be fairly blamed for many things, but being surprised by WN's arrival is not one of them.

 

[SolidCactus]

I have to fly Intrastate in FL a lot and I tried to find flights with everyone. WN was the only option. I did one a few weeks ago, and they really run it like a bus service. I did FLL to JAX. The flight was really an FLL to SFO i think, and it had 5 stops. When we arrived at JAX, the flight attendants were like, "those of you continuing onto (for some reason I think it was Birmingham?) you can just stay on the plane, and choose a new seat if you like, and we will turning this quickly and head to our next destination". It seems so efficient...

 

[nycbusdriver]

It wasn't unexpected at all. I recall at a roadshow Wolfe and Gangwal saying "they're coming, let's get ready" (paraphrasing). I believe parity plus 1% ensued, along with Metrojet, other measures, but it wasn't enough. Crystal City can be fairly blamed for many things, but being surprised by WN's arrival is not one of them.

You got the timeline wrong. It was the management previous to Wolf, i.e. Scholfield and Colodny, who were so smugly comfortable with their northeast corridor airline that they all but bragged that Southwest would never have the temerity to serve that area. Then Southwest announced BWI-PVD, and the rest is history.

 

[BoeingBoy]

It wasn't unexpected at all. I recall at a roadshow Wolfe and Gangwal saying "they're coming, let's get ready" (paraphrasing).

You may be mistaking the "East coast" reference with WN's entry into PHL. WN started BWI service in 1993 and Florida service in 1996 (the year Wolfe came aboard).

I believe parity plus 1% ensued, along with Metrojet, other measures, but it wasn't enough. Crystal City can be fairly blamed for many things, but being surprised by WN's arrival is not one of them.

Parity plus and Metrojet were Wolfe/Gangwal era measures, but long after WN's entry to the East coast - Metrojet was started in 1998 under the contract that contained parity plus - 5 years after WN entered BWI.

Jim

 

[US AIRWAYS FAN]

California was served with Trans States J31's.
Kansas and Louisiana were served with Air Midwest B1900's
Florida was served with Piedmont Dash 8's and then Air Midwest B1900's.

I would like to learn more about Louisiana's express service. I had no idea they had it.

I know MCO still have express service. Last summer I had a layover in MCO and saw quite a few express aircraft.....seemed like those aircraft were full too.

 

[flyJOE]

I would like to learn more about Louisiana's express service. I had no idea they had it.

The Louisiana service was operated by Air Midwest and was hubbed in MSY, but only served two cities in LA, SHV and BTR. They also served BPT, PNS, JAN, FYV (now XNA), and LIT. The LIT service continued onto MCI. The LIT-MCI route served as a bridging route for Air Midwest rotating their B-1900s between the MCI and Gulf Coast ops.


On the California Exprss service, the Trans-States J-31s were on the routes, but Stateswest also operated the B-1900 and B-1300 (aka Super King Air).

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?id=0082063


I know it wasn't talked about on here, but technically there was also interstate express service in PA. Of course having hubs in PHL and PIT helped connect to most cities, but there were a few PA cities that also connected to other non-PHL/PIT cities. Offhand I can think of MDT-ERI/AVP/ABE, ABE-RDG/AVP, with the so of them used as tag-ons or positioning with a USX mtc. bases in MDT and RDG.

Don't forget there was a ton of intrastate options in NY.