Heinrich

Tomorrow I'll buy myself an awardguard and may well be done with USairways. I hope that I get hope OK on Friday.

Then comes the New Year. I do *mostly* East Coast flying. The only clear second choice is Delta. But I just HATE Delta. I despise Atlanta. Besides the airport itself, Delta just sucks. I spent about 8 weeks full of generators going out, attendents hit in the head by doors closed too soon, workers crawling backwards out of engines with blow torches, pilots who'd gotten sick, gate computers that didn't print...it was just amazing to sit through week after week of SOMETHING GOING WRONG.

yet I check the runs down to Florida (Fort Myers, Sarasota or Tampa) and all I seem to see is Delta or USAir. I could hit America by flying 3 hops. I don't think I'd be able to do that.

Not sure what to do next except sigh and grit my teeth.

FOH

I don't know where you're based since you don't disclose it in your profile, but I'll fly WN before I fly DL. And then there's always AirTran, although I'd have to drive to NYC/BOS, which isn't particularly appealing. (I like my little regional airport a lot, thank you very much.)

IADCAflyer

Being in DC with most of my flights to Florida, New York, and San Diego, I'll probably gravitate back to American.

Heinrich

I am based in Norfolk, VA. We have every major airline there plus Southwest, and in Newport News (close) we have Airtran. I can get to Florida on Continental by flying up to Newark. Sounds like getting around your elbow to get to your ear, but Northwest means going out to Detroit and American looks like 3 segments to get down in the morning. After February '03 I dont' go to Florida any more any way.

hscottm

The mention of little airports (eg BDL, above) makes me wonder what the government would do when a major closed down, denying air service to those towns.

I dont recall offhand how many of the small northeast/midwest towns are served ONLY by US. Anyone remember?

If Athens, GA was able to petition to keep service even though US wanted to cut it, what would they do if 30 of them all lost service overnight?

FFMilesJunkie

Many of the smaller airports are not really serviced by US Airways, rather by one of their contract express carriers (ie Mesa). If US goes Ch.7, some of those express carriers would probably just sign a codeshare agreement with another airline and start feeding their hubs. It wouldn't be overnight, but they would probably get service restored quickly.

hscottm

FFMiles -

That was basically my point. Would the government step in and kick Mesa/et al in the pants to get such things done fast?

Example - some contract carrier probably flies the AHN-CLT (Athens, GA-Charlotte) route. No other airline would want them to connect in CLT. How fast could DOT give them route authority to fly AHN-ATL, etc?

HPTunco

Out of PIT I have a choice of either Amtrak or Greyhound for my new transportation provider.

We're a hostage of USAirways......I doubt that any other major will jump on all of the empty and underused gates at PIT.

Arrzee

Route authority? Correct me if I'm wrong, but, except for "slot-controlled" airports (LGA, DCA, SNA, ORD?), that's not needed for a domestic carrier flying domestically. All you need is landing clearance.

Arrzee

Hostage to US Airways? Sorry but that's a fallacy. Last I checked UA, AA, NW, DL, CO, and even, HP fly to/from PIT. It might not be as convenient, but the options are there.

ClueByFour

PIT, without the connecting traffic brought in by US, only needs 20 or 30 gates. Tops.

Should US go under, the first weeks will be ugly, as nobody else currently has enough lift in here to support the O/D demand without US. But things will eventually improve.

DL will fly to SLC, AA will go to MIA, NW might put real planes into MEM, and everybody will increase frequency. But it won't be a hub anymore.

This is not the end of the world. I've flown AA up to PLT this year, and I can tell you that connecting is not that bad, if you choose your connections carefully.

Failing all of this, try Execconnect (http://www.execconnectamerica.com/index.html). If you must go to CLE, go in some form of comfort (and, for those of us in the far North, pretty good convenience).

------------------
Saving the world, one clue at a time.

pitflyer

Too bad they don't pick up from near the Pittsburgh airport-- I drive from Pittsburgh to Cleveland nearly every other day... (work, not travel)

HPTunco

I don't disagree with the non-hub traffic at PIT needing only 20-30 gates. The question is what will we do with a fairly new, state of the art facility that's still probably has several hundred million $ of debt?

PIT probably has 100 gates (including "E"), that will gather moss while we fly to AA, DL, NW, etc's hubs.

ClueByFour

This is why I don't live in Allegheny County .

This is something they should have thought about before building the terminal in the first place. I'm assuming the bonds are probably insured, but the county's bond/debt rating will go in the toilet (probably for a long time) if they default on them, which they probably will if US folds, as it's unlikely that another major will move a hub here. Heck, even if Southwest came in, they would only be good for 5 or 10 gates, tops.

Quote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">PIT probably has 100 gates (including "E"), that will gather moss while we fly to AA, DL, NW, etc's hubs.

And the Airmall is toast. The Hyatt will probably be in trouble as well. It pains me to say it, but this is what happen when government blows large amounts of taxpayer equity on the whim of private enterprise (which, in this case, was/is/maybe managed right out of existance).

If you had the good fortune of passing thru Nashville after AA left and Southwest expanded the last round you probably saw something similar to what PIT is going to have should US fold (entire coucourses "boarded up").

Obviously, I'm hoping none of this happens.


------------------
Saving the world, one clue at a time.

CoMooter

If US folds - which I really don't expect - I would not be surprised to see FL make a play for some more presence. I would not expect WN to come in. PIT is too close to CLE.