Who Is In Danger?

[ISP]

I did some research, and came up with some quite disturbing numbers. US Airways, who as recently as 3 years ago was the #5 airline in terms of customers carried, is fading faster than many people seem to think. USAirways.com says that US Airways mainline serves 90 markets, but when this is broken down, the number of actual mainline stations is significantly less. When you subtract European, Carribbean, and stations already "expressed," the number of mainline operated stations is much lower. In fact, the stations listed below are the only stations remaining in the system with 10+ mainline daily departures. In all likelyhood, any remaining stations (excluding west coast where RJ's can't reach & SJU) will be "expressed" ASAP. Any thoughts about this?

US Airways Mainline Stations with 10+ departures daily & west coast stations

ALB
BDL
BOS
BUF
BWI
CLT
DCA
DEN
DFW
EWR
FLL
IAH
IND
JAX
LAS
LAX
LGA
MCI
MCO
MHT
MIA
MSY
ORD
PBI
PHL
PIT
PVD
RDU
SAN
SEA
SFO
RSW
SJU
TPA

On my count, that is 34 stations that are safe for the time being. Hate to say it, but any other station that sees mainline and that hasn't been expressed yet (Ex.: ILM, ORF, ROC, SYR, amongst others), you may be gone sooner than later. Sadly, US Airways was the number 1 carrier at all of those airports up until 2001. Only MHT, LAS, and SJU have seen growth in the past year. Talk about ruining a customer base and route network! This management is dispicable, and needs to go FAST. Honorary mention: ORF, GSO, BNA still have 8X flights/day, RIC 9X/day. Maybe they will be salvaged? Discuss!

 

[CynicalResAgent]

GSO is still mainline.

 

[Hope777]

I can tell you that in EWR, the Advance April Schedule shows only * 7 * Mainline Jets down from 11. I am NOT counting MDA E70's as Mainline as they show Express on there Titles. We will have only * 1 * Mainline Jet a day to PIT. As far as selling assets, we have four gates and only need two......

 

[ringmaruf]

Which stations have line maintenance nowadays, and what exactly does each station do? I'd imagine that those cities are (slightly) less likely to be expressed.

 

[wings396]

This Company has given up more stations than many would like to think about. There was a post a while back discussing this subject. I know there have been well over 20 Mainline stations closed in the past 10 years. Delta continues to serve many of these smaller stations with MD-88 and 757 Equipment. After hearing the MDA sales pitch from one of their MTC trainers, not even the longer haul stations are safe. We were told the MDA A/C could do PIT-IAH with no sweat. If this is the case a lot more stations are in danger. Remember they can still operate 2 Mainline flights a day and still keep you Expressed. When our wonderful Unions agreed to the Mainline Express classification, They didn't look into the implications of what could and will happen. Better than 1/2 the system will fall under the Express catagory earning poverty level wages. But on the other hand they will continue to collect your dues with no loss of funds for them. This company was the number 1 carrier in most of the stations we have closed. They did have an advantage over the other express carriers with larger Mainline A/C, but now nothing separates us from them.

 

[robbedagain]

it wont take long before we start seeing those so-called wonderful tonka toys RJs flying the cross-country and say minus a few rows of seats to make room for the over the water life rafts, they'll be doing the atlantic ocean crossing and the carribbean runs if the airline can survive long enough for this incompetent mgmt team of theives to turn it into that type of airline!

 

[ITRADE]

I think that its possible that one or two express cities might be added with the 170s.

SAT and AUS come to mind.

 

[hammerhead]

it wont take long before we start seeing those so-called wonderful tonka toys RJs flying the cross-country and say minus a few rows of seats to make room for the over the water life rafts, they'll be doing the atlantic ocean crossing and the carribbean runs if the airline can survive long enough for this incompetent mgmt team of theives to turn it into that type of airline!

Airtran, (and jetBlue soon) use RJ's in their systems. but i'm with you, those airlines don't know what they are doing. RJ's are just a fad and U labor knows this. that's why U was so far ahead of the game in prop deployment. I was glad labor continously turned down managements request for these RJ toys year after year. I will miss the PHL-BGR flight on the Dash.

 

[ITRADE]

Airtran, (and jetBlue soon) use RJ's in their systems. but i'm with you, those airlines don't know what they are doing. RJ's are just a fad and U labor knows this. that's why U was so far ahead of the game in prop deployment. I was glad labor continously turned down managements request for these RJ toys year after year. I will miss the PHL-BGR flight on the Dash.

A fad? So that's the reason why Delta has been kicking US's butt for the past 10 years???

 

[hammerhead]

Delta didn't see that RJ's aren't the way. robbedagain is right, RJ's are just tonka toys. UAIR needs to keep the props and take out seats and put life rafts in the Dashes and Dorks and fly'em across the atlantic. I heard they are approved for ETOPS. In the spirit of USair MEC! NO RJ's!

 

[Light Years]

As soon as those "Express" E-jets come pretty much nothing on the mainland except very western stations are safe. I still dont think alot of people are really aware of exactly what it is Mid will be flying. Alot of jaws will drop when they start seeing that large plane taking off for destinations in other time zones.

SAT and AUS, easy. We'll see them added. DEN, DFW, IAH, absolutly. The 170/190 family have range between 1500-2000. People are putting up with ERJ145s from EWR-FPO, EWR-OKC, and IAH-PSP (and thats one tiny little tube) and are about to see the CRJ700 from DEN-RDU and even SFO-AUS. The EMB170 surpasses both in comfort, in fact with the "Shuttle" configuration I'd venture to say it will have the most customer friendly economy class in the fleet (not taking IFE into account).

Check out Embraer's website and see what we are now calling "Express" or "Mainline Express" and paying our mainline employees less than other commuter airlines to work.

 

[robbedagain]

well whatever of the extreme west coast is left will be given to UAL