US AIRWAYS End of London route raises concerns

Some employees might have to go to Philadelphia to get to London.
By DAN NEPHIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PITTSBURGH -- The only nonstop daily flight from Pittsburgh International Airport to London will end in October, a few years after officials fought for restoration of the route.
While US Airways says demand doesn't support continuing the flights, business leaders say the flights are needed and wonder what the decision will mean for the region's economic health.
"We feel that the elimination of the direct flight is detrimental to our international business development activities because London is one of our key areas," Ronnie Bryant, president and chief operating officer of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, said in a statement. The alliance works on economic development in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The loss of London service "takes a little bit of a luster off of the city as a host to a trans-Atlantic corporate or business site," said Rich Kushner, vice president of industry relations for Marconi LLC, which is based in London with regional headquarters in suburban Pittsburgh.
"It makes our internal dealings with our corporate headquarters much more difficult." he said.
If the telecommunications company sticks with US Airways, employees will have to fly to Philadelphia to get a London flight. If not, he said, employees would have to go to New York or Chicago to connect.
Inconvenience
Malesia Dunn, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, in suburban Pittsburgh, said the loss will be inconvenient for employees traveling to its United Kingdom locations. However, she said, some employees have already been connecting from Philadelphia to get more convenient flights.
While acknowledging that the flight offered convenience to local business travelers, US Airways spokesman David Castelveter said most passengers were from connecting flights, not from the Pittsburgh area. He would not disclose the number of passengers the route carried and whether that number had declined since July 2000, when US Airways began flying the route, which had been dropped by another carrier. He also declined to say how much the airline would save by cutting the service.
"We don't find it economically prudent to operate the London service from three of our hubs," Castelveter said. US Airways will continue to offer nonstop London service from its Philadelphia and Charlotte hubs.
Allegheny County Executive Jim Roddey and others said they hope US Airways will reconsider, but he realizes that international traffic has declined since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"I guess we could go out and ask everybody to fly to London," Roddey said. He added, however, that officials had not given up on having the route.
Kent George, the Allegheny County Airport Authority executive director, did not return a message seeking comment Thursday.
A blow for city
Airline industry consultant Michael Boyd, president of The Boyd Group in Colorado, said losing London service was a blow for Pittsburgh, especially since so many people lobbied for its resumption. But it has little to do with either the city or US Airways and "everything to do with the new economics of the airline service," he said.
"Please everyone, take off your hair shirts. This has nothing to do with Pittsburgh," Boyd said. "Will it destroy the economic growth of western Pennsylvania? No. It just doesn't help."