IMPERIAL, PA. Pittsburgh airport would survive loss

Other cities that have lost airline hubs have attracted other carriers.
IMPERIAL, Pa. (AP) -- Losing its status as a US Airways hub would not be the end of the world for Pittsburgh International Airport, according to analysts.
In fact, after an initial drop in the number of nonstop flights it offers, the airport would likely offer more airline choices and better prices to fliers, according to industry analysts and officials at other airports that have lost their "hub" status in recent years.
"Raleigh-Durham may be the poster child for Pittsburgh," said Colorado-based airline analyst Michael Boyd.
The North Carolina airport lost its status as an American Airlines hub in the mid-1990s. At first, the impact was staggering: it served 9 million passengers in 1994 and just 5.9 million a year later.
Traffic rebounds
But traffic at Raleigh-Durham has rebounded, to 8.5 million passengers last year, and the airport had a pre-Sept. 11 high of 10 million passengers in 2000.
"In the mid-1990s, when [American] started phasing out the hub, the demand was still there," said Mindy Hamlin, the airport's spokeswoman. "Several airlines started business here between 1995 and 2000. They stepped in to meet demand."
A potential US Airways exodus from Pittsburgh remains possible because the Arlington, Va.-based airline has asked for as much as $864 million in state aid and improvements at airports in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Specifically, the airline, which controls 80 percent of the gates and therefore pays most of the airport's bond debt under a deal struck when a new Pittsburgh terminal opened in 1992, wants $500 million cut from the $673 million in outstanding bond debt.
Allegheny County officials have said such a cut is unworkable and are upset because the new terminal was designed to specifications desired by the airline, then known as USAir.
Shopping around
As a result, Allegheny County executive Jim Roddey has said he was shopping around for replacement carriers should US Airways shelve its plans to base its regional jet subsidiary, MidAtlantic Airways, in Pittsburgh -- despite the fact that US Airways has about 7,300 employees in the Pittsburgh region. Roddey said three or four airlines, which he declined to name, would consider coming to Pittsburgh if US Airways left.
Roddey also said that Pittsburgh has a sizable demand of local fliers. About 4 million of the 10 million people who board flights at Pittsburgh International are from the region, not just fliers passing through and boarding on connecting flights.
The airport handles about 18 million passengers a year, making it the 27th busiest airport in North America, according to the Airports Council International. The local market is especially important to point-to-point carriers like Southwest Airlines.
Southwest, AirTran and America West, all discount carriers, helped fill the void in Raleigh-Durham, and AirTran and America West already offer limited service out of Pittsburgh.
Nashville's rebound
Nashville International Airport saw its passenger base drop from 9 million to 7 million after American closed its hub there in 1994. That airport now serves about 8 million passengers with Southwest picking up much of the slack.
"Southwest was very young, and we saw a quick takeover from them of routes we had lost to the American downsizing," said Nashville airport spokeswoman Allison McAfee.
Today, Nashville is a quasi-hub for Southwest, which offered 215 of the airport's 399 daily flights through July. American still has a presence there, too, with 79 flights a day.
Boyd said the nonstop daily flights now operating out of Pittsburgh would drop from more than 100 to about 30 if US Airways left. But Pittsburgh airport officials said there are signs that discounters and others are waiting in the wings to pick up the slack.
Kent George, executive director of the airport authority, says New York-based JetBlue has placed multibillion-dollar orders for jets that, George hopes, may one day fly out of Pittsburgh. George declined to comment further on efforts to attract new airlines, however, citing ongoing negotiations with US Airways.