Yes really. The reason Republic has all of those flights is because they have a large MX base there...and they operate under this ludicrous notion that they have to base crews where they have MX bases, which makes for terrible schedules. Other examples are CMH, SDF, and IND.

Man, talk about a nostalgia trip! I grew up flying through PIT out of ERI to visit my dad in DC. I remember flying on Shuttle when they still had Saab's!

I flew them for Chautauqua before Shuttle America even existed

Blame county government for the usairways withdrawal. The airline was getting screwed over by Onorato and his greedy small minded government buddies. Playing chicken with over 10000 local jobs is never a good idea, but they did it anyway.

Republic has all of those flights there due to the network planers at the major partners. The majors plan the flights of their regional partners to optimize the network of the major carrier, not vice versa. Delta, American, etc couldn't give two sh/ts where Republic has their mx bases.

PIT is one of the most expensive airports in the country. Just as airlines have a metric of "seat mile costs", so airports have "Cost per enplaned Passenger". PIT's current costs are over $15 a head. In contrast CLT is just over $1.

PIT is one of the only airports where both SWA and Jet Blue have reduced service. Because CLE and CMH are nearby people will drive to those airports for lower fares. A cost of $15 per head X 100 pax is $1500 per flight. That's a lot of money to pay PIT airport to operate there. Alligent is serving PIT via the Latrobe airport. They don't pay any landing fees or significant taxes. The station is part time. The fuel cost is equivalent.

Airport Costs are now just as significant as per mile seat costs for the airline. PIT and Allegheny County have done a terrible job of controlling costs. The Allegheny County Aviation budget for operating PIT and Allegheny Co. Airport, is greater than the entire budget of the State of Maryland. BWI has over 6 times the traffic of PIT yet operates at a fraction of the cost.

That is the reason it is unlikely that any airline will hub in PIT. It is simply too expensive to operate there.

Republic has it built into their CPAs that they will operate all or most of the originator and terminator flights to it's MX bases. Its why Republic flights are always first out and last in to places like CMH, IND, PIT and SDF. Go ahead, check out a United or Delta schedule for CMH or IND...the first and last regional fight is nearly always operated by Shuttle America.

Also, Republic tried to feed it's American 175 flying from it's CMH base, but American said they couldn't because Eagle (Envoy) already has a MX base there.

Wait until AA buys a bunch more E190s since APA didn't cave on scope. Already a LUS maintenance presence there, just sayin,,,,.MUCH stranger things have happened.

Ah, Allegiant isn't doing Pittsburgh via Latrobe, that's Spirit doing Latrobe. Allegiant just started doing pit out PIT.

Yes, the majors do give two sh!t$ about mx bases. Just look at ANY regional airline. If there's a mx base, they will operate a majority of the flights there. STL for TSA, COS MKE TUS FAT and a few others for SkyWest, and the ones already mentioned for Republic. Are you that stupid to not see the connection?