That likely includes most of the 38 gates in the express terminal (which cannot accommodate mainline), and US operates far more than 20 international flights.

Domestically, by my count, there are only 32 gates in B and C concourses (US's domestic concourse) -- one reason why many mainline flights are offloading to the international terminal as it is. . . no gate space.

Most "international" is to the Caribbean and Latin America -- the transatlantic component are the most profitable but not the sole international presence.

Flights to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Bahamas, etc. all have to clear customs too, you know.

And since there's only a single bank of European flights that depart at night after connecting traffic arrives, there needs to be a fairly large number of gates available to accept the traffic. Without those connections, a great deal of US's traffic to Europe wouldn't be profitable.

US could slash its Caribbean schedule to accommodate China and Europe, but that wouldn't be a good business decision either (and the usual suspects would still complain).

Have you ever flown through Philadelphia before? It cannot ever be characterized as a "non busy" airport, and already has trouble handling the existing flights and connections.

US and other carriers at Philly have tried to deal with this by cutting frequencies to less popular destinations -- like Erie and Altoona -- but the same politicians complaining about the capacity problems will roar back to complain about "service cuts to small communities."

And they're being told to fly more international services -- with connecting traffic -- with fewer gates at an overcrowded hub.

Something's got to give.

Last summer, it was schedule integrity, especially to Europe.

It looks like it will be the number of destinations, and which ones are served, from here on out.