Originally Posted by jaymay
This really is sad. I was discussing with a friend yesretday how nice it was on the rare occasions we flew through PIT (being on the South end, we're almost exclusively CLT folks). It always seemed like a good place to fly through.
But with the merger happening, it's really hard to get a handle on how things will change in the next year - maybe it'll turn around.
We all loved (and still love) PIT. But the US has no reason to grow it as a hub ever again. During the glory days of US, PIT was the primary hub for east-west transcon flights (think back to when US had daily departures to SNA from PIT). PIT had more east-west flights than did CLT and PHL.
With PHX and LAS coming into the fold, US has no need to use PIT as a transcon hub. HP already has service from PHX to nearly every major market on the east coast so most pax will have one stop transcon service through the western hubs. Meanwhile, southbound flights will mostly connect through CLT and northeast flights through our favorite airport...PHL.
My expectation is that, as the merger completes and the airlines begin to truly integrate their routes and get a handle on what impact this will have on consumer travel patterns you can expect a few things:
PIT will be further downsized, especially on the transcon routes.
FLL will grow with more transcon, regional and Latin America service.
PHL and / or CLT will get new service to SNA and, perhaps, PDX as well as a couple of cities in TX (think AUS and SAT) in the short term.
There may be a dip in transcon service from PHL and CLT if the new airline decided to route some of the connecting traffic through PHX or LAS instead.
More transcon point to point service
Let's face it, it's over. PIT no longer fits in the US business model. Perhaps if the FAA puts capacity controls on PHL the new US may shift a little traffic over to PIT, but I really think they would just increase service from BOS, LGA, BWI and DCA. Moving forward PIT will have service where local traffic is willing to support it.