US Airways hubs before merger?
 

Hi, I apologize for opening a new thread to ask a simple dumb question. I think US Airways used to have three hubs in the east, however now I see only two on their route map. What was the one besides Philly and Charlotte?

it was pittsburgh but it is now a focus city

PIT; was downgraded to a "focus city" or whatever maybe before the merger; not sure.

What he said.

Ditto. I'd only add that US rejected the PIT leases just before emerging from BK1 at the end of March 2004, and that's when the downsizing of PIT began in earnest.

Jim

Hello, everyone!
As a CP who's flown out of PIT a lot since 2003, I can lay a large part of the blame (or credit, I guess, if you hate PIT) at the feet of Allegheny County. True, the post-9/11 downturn in revenue at the AirMall shops made it hard to keep paying for the "new" airport, but the people on the Airport Authority Board did very little to try and keep US Airways in Pittsburgh. I guess the job losses have been hashed through again and again on this and other forums, but the pre-merger corporate people were certainly not alone in their responsibility for trashing what (I thought was) a good hub. The county itself bears a huge burden of guilt on this one, IMHO, for their rather pricey terms on the lease renewals. (Correct me, please, if I'm wrong.)

Shortly after their merger with Piedmont, USAir advertised that they had hubs or focus cities (which I think they called connection centers) at PHL, SYR, BWI, DAY, IND, PIT, and CLT. They also inherited some in California from PSA.

BWI was hub US abandoned shortly after 9/11

That was way too many hubs for anyone.

Just shows what happens when you merge carriers. If you pick 1990 (the US/PI integration was 8/89), the true hubs were CLT, BWI, PIT, DAY. PHL was in the early stages of becoming a major hub - probably about what PIT is today (by # of flights). IND was trying to be a mini-hub, but smaller than PIT today. SYR still had the last vestiges of being Empire's hub.

If you looked at what the US/DL merger would have created, it'd be worse - hubs or focus cities at ATL, CLT, DCA, PHL, PIT, LGA, JFK, BOS, PHX, LAS, SLC, and LAX.

Jim

IND was their primary stopover for trans-con travel. Flights departing east coast hubs bound for west coast destinations would stop here all around the same time and you'd have sudden but short-lived madness.

Pax coming from PHL on a plane bound for SFO but heading to SAN would swap out with pax coming from CLT on the SAN-bound plane but wanting to go to SFO. Add at least four more planes to the mix.

Same thing on the eastbound flights returning to the hubs from west coast cities. It was chaos!

Actually, the BWI hub was reduced greatly following the arrival of WN in 1993. At some point (correct me if I'm wrong) probably around 1995 or 96, US began their MetroJet mess and based it out of BWI as a direct response to WN. Tht lasted a few years until MetroJet ceased operations and US all but left BWI. I guess things got a little better after the merger with the addition of the HP routes...:rolleyes:

They are still pretty big in BWI in my opinion. Good number of gates and usually full flights to PHL, PIT, or CLT. I use BWI on US for most of my flights instead of DCA, IAD, RIC, ORF, RDU, or any others with in 2.5 hours of RIC. They compete pretty good with WN on price at least on where I am going. Every once and a while they are even better than WN on price. The famous BWI to MHT 39 to 49 route. Upgrade and two stops will always beat the load em up fast, all coach, nonstop WN flight.

I guess it's all relative. Those that have been around the airline as long as I have remember when both arms of D-Con (less a couple of gates) plus all the express gates would be full of our planes. Now we use only 4 - 5 mainline gates on one arm of D-Con plus a few of Express gates.

Jim

Yeah but isnt that pretty good, I mean they only fly to 4 places from BWI so 8 to 10 gates would be enough for that I would say and they use near all of them dont they? Who is 2nd and 3rd biggest behind WN at BWI? US has to be one of them.

At places I am at most of the time on US they dont even use but like 4 gates out of the 7 to 10 they have (exc. hubs and DCA).

Here at home RIC they use 3 gates out of the, I believe 7 they have.