Airport traffic up again (Pittsburgh, Harrisburg: relocating, location, market)

[Evergrey]

Daily Paris would be awesome and would go a long way toward making that route successful and permenant. Do you have a link to this schedule?

[PITairport]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Daily Paris would be awesome and would go a long way toward making that route successful and permenant. Do you have a link to this schedule?

You can go to Delta Air Lines - Airline Tickets and Airfare to Worldwide Destinations and chose PIT-CDG for any date after March 2013.

The downloadable PDF schedule from Delta.com is only the current schedule (Sept 2012).

[Anonymous939630]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Fantastic news. I wondered how that flight was holding up! Crazy the prices they are charging for it though - there must be some serious demand.

By my rough estimates [checking delta.com reservations' seat maps for PIT-CDG and vice versa a few days before the flights], the flights seem to run at roughly 85-95% capacity.

[AaronPGH]

^ That is really solid. Maybe we're not as far away from a second international destination as I thought.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

^ That is really solid. Maybe we're not as far away from a second international destination as I thought.

I wonder what that second destination will be?

[BrianTH]

A second destination would be cool, but also cool would be competition along any given route. Competitive pricing to any major European gateway would result in lower prices to many European destinations, albeit with a stop--but a stop in Europe can be much friendlier than a stop here.

[AaronPGH]

A second European hub destination would also create the same competition though, would it not? If my end destination is Istanbul, for instance, two airlines could essentially compete for my business by using each of their hubs as a connecting point. Delta would compete with PIT > CDG > IST, while (just making stuff up here) Lufthansa could compete with PIT > FRA > IST. We'd also gain a second direct destination for the business community here –*who probably wouldn't really care so much about pricing, more about timing? I'm not an expert on this stuff or anything.

[Evergrey]

Oh... I want Lufthansa at PIT!

[AaronPGH]

Me too.... I'm pipe dreamin' Doesn't seem too far-fetched though as long as Bayer stays in town.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

A second European hub destination would also create the same competition though, would it not? If my end destination is Istanbul, for instance, two airlines could essentially compete for my business by using each of their hubs as a connecting point.

Potentially, but it would have to be two different carriers, obviously, and such potential competition may or may not have much affect on pricing on the PIT to Europe routes. That would depend on things like how many fliers had those first stops as their final destination, and whether the first airline was able to capture profit from the connecting service (which might not be the case if, for example, you planned to link up with European budget airlines, or for that matter trains). My sense is that generally, direct competition on the same route is by far the most important factor in pricing, but I do think it varies.