PHL: Plane early, gate late
May 2, 2005, 4:42 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: PHL
Programs: Marriott Gold, SPG Gold, US Air Silver
Posts: 10
PHL: Plane early, gate late
OK, another PHL moment precipitated by US Air's odd pricing structure. My home airport is PHL and I always fly out of there, but after pricing flights from PHL to Columbus, OH, I found they were $700 more than flying out of Allentown/Lehigh Valley and then connecting via PHL and getting on the same flight. Go figure, right? So what did I do? The cheaper thing that put me on the plane longer but dropped the roundtrip price down from ~$1,100 to ~$400. Flight from LVI went well with a very cheerful crew (Chatauqua airlines operating US Air Express). However, we got to PHL and there wasn't a gate available! Go figure, right? I've run into this 1 out of every 3 times I come home to PHL and now I know why I warn people about connecting through PHL. Long story summed up: we got there 10 minutes early and finally got off 30 minutes late. Go PHL! Get that runway extended, PLEASE! I'm about to move so I can fly out of an easier to use airport!
May 2, 2005, 5:13 pm
#2
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Reading, PA
Programs: US lowlife
Posts: 2,006
Unless there's a GoFare its typically cheaper to fly out of a satellite airport than fly out of PHL. I was doing the reverse, flying in from ROC, and it was 95% of the time cheaper to fly into MDT, RDG, or ABE rather than PHL.
Gotta love pricing
Gotta love pricing
May 2, 2005, 6:20 pm
#3
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: KUSA
Programs: Whatever AMEX Plat comes with... I buy on price.. Spirit Big Front Seat, want First/buy First
Posts: 1,475
It's more a case of there being too many Express flights and they are flat out of gates. Charlotte is running into the same problem. They may have to resort to moving some of the Express operation to a mainline concourse, but then, we'll have people complaining about that (when a gate change means riding the bus from F back over to C or whatnot).
May 2, 2005, 6:23 pm
#4
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: DC|NYC
Programs: UA GS, DL Plat, Marriott Bonvoy LIfetime Titanium/SPG refugee, Hertz Prez, Amtrak Select
Posts: 3,201
ski2dude: check out BWI as well as ABE. With SW there, tickets are often 100s of dollars less, although it pains me to fly right back into PHL. Sometimes I'll route through PIT, which feels slightly less stupid.
May 2, 2005, 7:47 pm
#5
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Commuting around the mid-atlantic and rust-belt on any number of RJs
Programs: TSA Random Selectee Platinum, * Gold, SPG/HH/MR mid-tier, and a tiny bag of pretzels.
Posts: 9,255
Welcome to PHL. You get the same thing in LGA with the express flights--10 minutes early, 25 minutes late by the time you are off the plane.