New Flights to San Fran and LA

[South Range Family]

Originally Posted by tibor75

good article on the sad state of affairs at the Pittsburgh airport

Business fliers find it tough to get here

A small quote from the article. "Ten years ago, local travelers complained about fares so high from Pittsburgh International Airport that former Mayor Tom Murphy once drove to Cleveland to catch a cheaper flight. Pittsburgh fares then were among the highest in the country, thanks to the US Airways fortress hub."

This is where I get to say, "I TOLD YOU SO".

Ten years ago the favorite recreational activity in Pittsburgh was bashing USAir. It used to make me so mad listening to KDKA. All of the callers complained about high prices. They wanted USAir to leave, or go out of business.

All they ever talked about was how great it would be if Southwest, Jetblue or a dozen other lowcost airlines would come in and teach USAir a lesson. Every newspaper you read had the same things to say. "Pittsburgh would be a better place if USAir would just go away".

Nobody ever cared about the thousands upon thousands of USAir employees that poured millions of dollars into the Pittsburgh economy. Many were jealous of their paychecks. They were your own friends, neighbors, and relatives, but you didn't care. All you cared about was a cheap ticket.

You got those cheap tickets now. Too bad you can't use them to get anywhere. More importantly, too bad nobody can get here. They are all now spending their money in other cities. Just like the thousands of USAir employees that moved to other stations.


Well Pittsburgh, you bit the hand that fed you too many times. Now you can starve to death.

[pman]

Originally Posted by South Range Family

Ten years ago the favorite recreational activity in Pittsburgh was bashing USAir. It used to make me so mad listening to KDKA. All of the callers complained about high prices. They wanted USAir to leave, or go out of business.

All they ever talked about was how great it would be if Southwest, Jetblue or a dozen other lowcost airlines would come in and teach USAir a lesson. Every newspaper you read had the same things to say. "Pittsburgh would be a better place if USAir would just go away".

Nobody ever cared about the thousands upon thousands of USAir employees that poured millions of dollars into the Pittsburgh economy. Many were jealous of their paychecks. They were your own friends, neighbors, and relatives, but you didn't care. All you cared about was a cheap ticket.

You got those cheap tickets now. Too bad you can't use them to get anywhere. More importantly, too bad nobody can get here. They are all now spending their money in other cities. Just like the thousands of USAir employees that moved to other stations.


Well Pittsburgh, you bit the hand that fed you too many times. Now you can starve to death.

Well, this is exactly what was said in Philadelphia. Philadelphia had among the highest fares in the country, ths service was poor, bags were lost, and every bashed the old "Agony Air" and hoped southwest would come to town. Well, they did, fares dropped, US Air restructured as a low fare carrier, and passenger traffic is way up at PHL. I don't want to burst your "I told you so bubble" but it wasn't competition at Pittsburgh airport ath forced US Air's hand. Bush stopped giving airlines handouts, finally, Southwest was attacking them on ALL fronts...they moved to Philadelphia recognizing its importance to US Air's P&L hoping to slay the dragon. What US Air did in Pittsburgh was a long time coming and had little to do with Pittsburgh itself. It's simple geography. US Air restructured as a low fare carrier but also wanted to increase it's higher margin European flights. Philadelphia made more geographic sense for those flights. Given that this was going to happen, it was Pittsburgh's time to restructure it's airport. Sadly, it JUST lowered its landing fees which were among the highest (inexplicably). That should have been done years ago.

[Geeo]

The landing fees were high at Pittsburgh because USAir reneged on all its contracts with the airport thirty minutes before emerging from bankrupcy the second time. They were helping pay the debt off for the airport that was built to their specifications to be their premiere hub for decades. Once they weezled out of that, they left us holding the bag on the debt so they could go off to Philadelphia and use that on the cheap because it's such an outdated and dingy airport. If this were still their main connecting airport, they wouldn't have all the delays and wasted time burning fuel on the aprons waiting to take off in Philadelphia.

[South Range Family]

The landing fees have been high for at least 30 years.

There were many more dirty dealings by the County, but it's not worth getting my blood pressure up after all of these years, so I'll just let it go.

[pman]

Originally Posted by Geeo

The landing fees were high at Pittsburgh because USAir reneged on all its contracts with the airport thirty minutes before emerging from bankrupcy the second time. They were helping pay the debt off for the airport that was built to their specifications to be their premiere hub for decades. Once they weezled out of that, they left us holding the bag on the debt so they could go off to Philadelphia and use that on the cheap because it's such an outdated and dingy airport. If this were still their main connecting airport, they wouldn't have all the delays and wasted time burning fuel on the aprons waiting to take off in Philadelphia.

yeah, I don't know that you're on point there. Philadelphia built a snazzy new International Terminal back in the 90's (I think it was launched in 2000) for US Air's international ambitions. Philadelphia just happened to be in the right place at the right time. With southwest squeezing domestic margins, international flights took on more importance. Moreover, PHL allows them to take advantage of the northeast flyers where people come down to PHL for cheap fares from North Jersey (yes, it happens now), the metro area is more than twice as big,and flying to Pittsburgh to connect to European destinations would have meant they would forego the east coast market. nobody flies west to go east. I also think you're off base on PHL. some of it is outdated, but hardly dingy. US Air's space is pretty nice, actually. Perhaps Pittsburgh should take a cue from PHL and not launch completel overhauls before the traffic materializes. (don't ask me how Philly ended up with a well run airport given everything else they run so poorly). Remember, sometimes slow and steady wins the race. they jsut finished up an overhaul of B and C with shared security area and "mall" and will move on to the rest of the airport.

Q: How will the $300 million renovation and expansion to Terminals D and E benefit passengers?
A: It's one-stop shopping. Bags will get on airplanes more efficiently. The D-E connector building allows freedom to walk from Concourses A to E and go through security only once. The customer experience will be greatly enhanced with all the new shops.

Q: What is Southwest's role in the $45 million fan-shaped extension at the end of Concourse E?
A: We are acting as the general contractor. We are adding seven gates for aircraft. If you add those seven to our existing nine gates, that will give us 16 gates available. We are posting a February 2010 opening.

Celebrating the fifth year and flying high in Philly | Philly | 05/04/2009 (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20090504_Celebrating_the_fifth_year_and_flying_hig h_in_Philly.html?page=2&c=y - broken link)

A lot of people in Philly thought the way you do and they turned out to be wrong. Philly's biggest problem is its most expensive, lack of adequate runway space so there isn't an enormous amount of room for growth in the number of daily flights.

PIT's slowness in lowering fees indicates to me that management isn't in tune with their place in the market nor responsive enough to declining traffic.

[RockLobster]

Returned into Pit last Thursday from Fort Lauderdale and as we traveled the tarmac to the gate around much of the terminal I counted a total of three planes at the gates. Yes that was 3 ! And two of those were regional jets. The inside of the terminal was a complete ghost town. It's truly an amazing and sad scene out there for 75% of the day. Has to be the most unused terminal in the nation at this point.

[pman]

Originally Posted by pman

United to fly nonstop Pittsburgh to Los Angeles, San Francisco - Pittsburgh Business Times:

first san fran and LA, then chicago, then milwaukee
//www.city-data.com/forum/pitts...o-flights.html
now boston

Travelers to Boston will have twice or thrice as many choices come this summer, as New York-based JetBlue Airways begins offering added daily flights in May and June.
Currently, the low-fare airline offers only one nonstop daily flight from Pittsburgh International Airport to Logan International Airport in Boston.
The airline announced today that a second nonstop flight to Boston will resume May 1 and a third will be added June 17.
According to the Allegheny County Airport Authority, beginning May 1, JetBlue's Pittsburgh to Boston flights will depart at 9:25 a.m. and 6:44 p.m., while Boston to Pittsburgh flights will depart at 7 a.m. and 4:22 p.m.
As of June 17, a Pittsburgh to Boston flight departing at 12:51 p.m. will be added to the schedule, as will a Boston to Pittsburgh flight departing at 10:30 a.m.

JetBlue adds flights from Pittsburgh to Boston - Pittsburgh Business Times:

[Geeo]

When USAir went belly-up, the Airport Authority focused on making the air service from here one that would be tailored to where Pittsburgh and the region needed to go. The result is more airlines and good service to the most popular destinations from here. Jet Blue just announced added service to Boston, there is new service to Milwaukee, service to the west coast, and service to Florida. Tons of service to the three NY airports, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston. And even Paris. True, you can't fly non-stop to Binghamton, NY anymore, but that flight was probably mostly connecting passengers.