I normally fly out of ABE to PIT and connect from there, since I want to avoid PHL whenever possible. However, it is not such a difference that I won't drive the extra hour to PHL in order to avoid a DASH-8 to PIT. Now as I am planning my trips for next year what do I find. They are adding a single mainline jet back to CLT, but all flights to PIT are now Dash or Saab 340. Gone are the regional jets. They have even dropped two flights to PHL on a Dash, so even PHL as a connection becomes less convenient. Now SWA is coming to PHL and while managment has said they will fight them at all costs, they downgrade service to a close airport that according to the local press has had increased passengers from pre-2001 (although US has cut service--luckily there are six other airlines that fly into it). I guess they want to encourage me to drive to PHL and try SWA service. Fighting a competitor shouldn't be as short sighted as looking at only one hub. While it was previously thought SWA would attack PHL from ABE, it seems mangement will let them win ABE without putting a plane into it. Managment seems to overlook when fighting a competitor you look at the entire picture and not be myopic. Here focusing on PHL, they are actually taking action that will aid their new competitor establish a foothole. As a small business owner I wonder if there is common sense anywhere in large corporations. It would have made more sense to leave things as they were three RJ with two Dash's to PIT a day, 7/8 Dash's to PHL and a RJ to CLT.


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ABE is a perfect example of why US's costs are so high. It is so close to two of its hubs that the cost of running multiple flights each day to all three hubs is killing them.

What Geo1005 says is true, if they were flying out empty instead of relatively full as they are. With Express costs, they still should be making money. Remember if we do not connect in PHL or PIT, us ABE passengers can fly Comair RJ's to Cinncinati or Continental RJ's to Cleveland or U to IAD--which are approximately the same distance. If it makes money for everyone else, it should for U too. You sound like you want to protect what I am realizing is inempt management. Besides going to PIT is intrastate as much as connecting and there are a lot of O&D for that route alone. If it were you, would you take a Saab 340 or an RJ or drive an extra hour to PHL and try out SWA with its lower fares. That's the point. It is not just PHL that U should be looking at but also ABE, Harrisburg, (about million population in both general areas--not the cities themselves but including surrounding areas) Reading & Trenton (less than million pop. in each but still substantial). It's the region that's at stake. Philly is nice but you have to look beyond its borders.

The Philadelphia suburban sprawl has extended Northward to the point where I see ABE more as an alternative airport to PHL (i.e. the way BUR and SNA are alternative airports to LAX), which could easily support point-to-point traffic. US should be capitalizing on this, and using ABE as an extension of the PHL O&D market by adding mainline routes to other cities besides their hubs, instead of handing ABE flyers over to the competition on a silver platter.