Pittsburgh Int'l Airport slipping slipping slipping.. (Latrobe, Arnold: price, shop, statistics)

[pman]

Passenger traffic at Pittsburgh International Airport increased 12 percent in February compared to February 2010, the biggest monthly gain in nearly nine years, the Allegheny County Airport Authority said Wednesday.
It was the 11th straight month that airport traffic increased compared to the same month a year earlier -- and the biggest jump since September 2002. A gain that month was attributed largely to a sharp drop in traffic a year earlier -- after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Pittsburgh airport's passenger traffic soars - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

[Geeo]

Seems like the airport is regaining its footing after USAir went belly-up. Now it's an airport that meets local demand rather than funneling connecting passengers from one place to another. And the O&D traffic has increased, probably because fares have gone down now that there is competition. And maybe the improving economy is helping, plus the expansion of local companies like Westinghouse and dare I say it, the energy sector?

[BrianTH]

Yeah, I wonder how much of that is Marcellus workers going back and forth.

Anyway, I agree the airport is actually working quite well in terms of serving local needs. It is just the nagging issue of construction debt that is a problem.

[psulions2007]

The Pittsburgh airport was always the cheapest airport to fly into or out of in the state and region when I went to PSU. You'd think that would help PIT traffic.

[Mugatu]

Originally Posted by pman

Pittsburgh airport's passenger traffic soars - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Passenger traffic certainly looks up to me. I flew out on vacation Thursday morning around 6am 2 weeks ago and the security line was the longest I've ever seen it by far. People were literally lined up hundreds deep and the line went out the door. Luckily, I discovered the alternate checkpoint upstairs and I didn't have to wait for 2 hours in line. But it was a madhouse.

[RockLobster]

United the sole non stop provider to the West Coast announces reducing it's non stop service to the nation's second largest market, Los Angeles. Eliminating flights on three days out of the week. Citing a lack of bookings on certain days combined with higher fuel cost led to the ax of Pittsburgh-LA Non Stop service on certain days.
One thing Pittsburgh international officials have become proficient with is sugar coating the obvious. Using the usual suspect ( Philadelphia International ) and Baltimore as examples of United eliminating non stop service to Los Angeles to soften the fact Pittsburgh can't support daily non stop service across the country. In reality both Philly and Baltimore have at least two other carriers offering daily non stop service between those markets. Where as despite growing passenger numbers, Pittsburgh International still remains a microcosm of it's former self and struggles to maintain traffic on many routes. Perhaps with South West and Air Tran combining and using smaller aircraft than United, Pittsburgh will pick up a daily non stop between PIT and LAX.

[RockLobster]

Has anyone flown out of (LBE) Latrobe Arnold Palmer Regional to Fort Lauderdale or Myrtle Beach on Spirit's new non stop service ? Free on site airport parking, small scale facility and a good italian restaurant inside the terminal are pleasant aspects of flying out of this facility. Obviously for eastern burb folks the closeness of LBE is a big factor vs PIT.

[greg42]

They didn't cut the San Francisco though right? United has more of a hub in SFO than LAX.

I wondered how those were doing. Reality is, not enough call all days of the week for the LAX, that's not too surprising to me. Plus, they charge a huge premium for those. I flew on the SFO-PIT last fall but I had booked an award flight, and that was actually not my favored routing (because I was coming from Vegas, LOL; didn't try hard enough to get it switched, was rejected downstairs but should have tried again out at the gate).

You couldn't pay me to fly Spirit. Might as well be flying Ryanair.

In fact, I'm so fed up with the security BS that although I'm holding some nice cheap tix to BOS on JetBlue (bought before fuel started going way up) I'm 99% sure I'm going to bag it and drive despite the rising cost of gas.

[RockLobster]

Greg,your correct in that the SFO flight (s) are not being touched while the LAX flight is reduced.

[PeterRabbit]

Originally Posted by RockLobster

Has anyone flown out of (LBE) Latrobe Arnold Palmer Regional to Fort Lauderdale or Myrtle Beach on Spirit's new non stop service ? Free on site airport parking, small scale facility and a good italian restaurant inside the terminal are pleasant aspects of flying out of this facility. Obviously for eastern burb folks the closeness of LBE is a big factor vs PIT.

I love this airport. I didn't know they were flying anywhere after the last big airline left a couple of years ago.