PIT as a domicile
 

Top o the morning and pleasant beans to all.

I know that currently RAH is the only company with a PIT domicile. Any chance of others opening up there?

Adieu

Doubt it. Pit is a ghost town, unfortunately. Great airport.

PIT like many other former hub cities (MEM, CLE, etc) will probably never be a hub city again. The only reason RAH has a domicile there is because they have some weird thing about crew domiciles being co-located with maintenance bases.

I think the best anyone can hope for would be Southwest or Frontier wanting to make a larger presense but that's really about it. The big 3 airlines already have their surrounding hub cities making PIT unusable.

^^^ This all the way^^^

That's upsetting. If only the airport authority and US Airways could have worked things out back then

Great airport is stretching it a bit.

I would say an airport with long runways, plenty of gates, efficient deicing, along with a lot of stores and restaurants that charge outside pricing is a great airport. It's a great place to have a small sit in the middle of a trip with that Rite Aid and a Post Office, as well as some interesting exhibits to look at.

Wish you guys could have seen it back in the mid-90s. Place was hopping. Rome, London, Paris... Tons of transcons, tons of commuters... Sad

While operations are substantially less than in the mid-90s, the original PIT terminal was a horrible place for a hub in the late 70s/early 80s. Even with the current number of flights in and out of PIT, the previous terminal would be poorly equipped to handle the operations as they are today.

Since APA didn't cave in scope, I wouldn't be surprised to see an E190 presence there in the future,,..esp if AA/US buys some more of them.

MUCH stranger things have happened.

I do remember PIT back in the late 90's, early 2000's. It was bustling with activity. Nowadays it's just an empty shell. I can't remember if it was Wolfe or Gangwal at the head of UsAir that gutted the place. They got their millions so it's all good I guess.

PIT suffers from the same thing as CVG. It doesn't have a lot of O/D traffic, is very expensive relative to other options driving distance (think CAK or CLE with PIT; DAY or SDF with CVG) and is just too close to other hubs with better international presence (PHL, JFK, CLT for PIT; DTW, JFK, ATL for CVG.)

Even before the end of Comair, CVG was trying to get Southwest into the airport. But since Southwest serves CMH, DAY (via the AirTran acquisition), IND, LEX and SDF, all within roughly 100 miles of CVG, Southwest isn't there.

I remember DAY as a hub for the original Piedmont. Following the merger that formed USAir(ways?), the company tried operating DAY and PIT but found they couldn't do so. DAY was closed as a hub because it was so close to PIT.

When the new PIT was built, it was designed to be a hub airport. From that point of view, it is a great airport.

Still a lot of commuters at PIT...to PHL and DCA. The early morning flights are basically crew shuttles.

Along with IAD and CLT. Just about every senior YV guy in IAD comes from PIT.

No, I meant actual "commuters". The E gates (now a TSA parking lot) was filled over capacity with Dash 8s, Dornier 328s, Saabs, Jetstreams, Beech 1900s, and the occasional Shorts. Airplanes unrecognizable to this generation of pilots because they have spinny things on the front that make them go.

Not really..., Republic has a handful of flights at PIT as Delta Connection; and United Express; and US Airways Express; and American Eagle. Add them all up and it makes sense for Republic to have a base at PIT.


Agreed on Southwest (Frontier doesn't even serve PIT). In fact, local rumors are about a major Southwest build up at PIT in 2016.

The US Airways dehubbing was 10 years ago and since then the local economy has stabilized around Eds/Meds, Financial and legal services, Robotics, and Energy. PIT will be just fine in the years ahead.

Well fingers crossed!

I did get that, hence the ... in my reply. You missed my attempt at sarcasm there...

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?

Do you possibly think that the regionals made the obvious choice in many cases to locate mx and crew bases where they have a large number of flights, just like any other airline? For how many years has TSA and Skywest had a large operation in those cities you list?

I see you're a real class act.

Do you possibly think that you could just admit that you shot your mouth off about something that you apparently know very little about?

With all the whipsawing and changes between major partners that the regionals have gone through over the past years, do you seriously believe the major airlines will plan their networks based on where regionals currently are? Why do you think bases open and close over the long run? Maybe you really do believe that. You probably wipe your @ss then take a dump too.

I'm sure the regionals can offer lower costs to certain cities based on operational need. Why is it that TSA/GJ have any continued presence in STL, RAH in PIT or PSA in DAY? If it is part of the agreement that the RFP cost is based on certain cities in the network, then the major is obligated to follow it. Yes, regional airlines are mostly at the whim of their major partners, but if you think they do it at risk of making no money or running an incredibly expensive operation with repos to maintenance outstations, then you are really have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.

I don't disagree with what you are saying. My point was that the major will not include a city pair in its network just because it is a mx base for one of its regionals. Using PIT as an example, I notice Republic has a lot of ferry flights between PIT and CMH (9xxx flight numbers). Presumably to move aircraft to mx bases? I'm sure Republic would love for one of their major partners to operate CMH-PIT. But with those two cities both being non hubs and only a 3 hour drive, it makes no sense to operate flights, and in this example Republic having mx bases in both cities makes no difference to AA or DL or whoever.

Just thought that I'd point out the irony with this:

Anyway, yes, they do. They have contractual agreements with regionals to operate the originator and terminator flights into the regional's MX bases.

Anyway, just....stop. You're defending a position that you should have never taken and arguing with people who clearly know far more than you just for the sake of attempting to appear correct.

Stop.

TSA operates a hub and spoke out of PIT to BDL, RDU, and STL under the Eagle brand (formerly US)

But the city pairs do not exist for that purpose! Its really not a difficult point :confused:

We were never trying to make the point that a major would operate flights from a mx base to other random cities for a regional. Now you're just pulling things out of your a$$.