USAirways At Pittsburgh: Now At Less Than 10% Of What Once Was…

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I remember back in my high school days in Pittsburgh around the turn of the century when the options for flights into Pittsburgh was USAirways, USAirways, or USAirways.

When Airtran started flights from Pittsburgh to LGA in 2001 USAir put up a massive fight causing fares to drop to $29, which of course drove Airtran out and Airtran smartly relocated their precious LGA slots to Akron/Canton, OH, about 45 minutes out of Cleveland, where they still operate 3 successful daily flights.

I was shocked to see that of USAirways’ 600+ daily flights out of Pittsburgh they are now down to under 60 daily flights (and of that under 2 dozen on are mainline USAirways flights, the rest are on barbie’s dream jets…) I guess there’s only so many resources an airline can devote to protecting a fortress hub before throwing in the towel.

I suppose this means that the PIT hub can now be called officially killed, but it’s only the latest in a string of mid-size market city’s hubs that have closed over the past 10 years or so.

USAir closed Baltimore/BWI after 9/11, AA shuttered Nashville and Raleigh/Durham. Delta ended hub service to Dallas/DFW,  America West (Now USAir) used to have a hub in Columbus…

So, care to guess what the next mid-size market hub to close will be?  Each of these hubs have seen massive cuts or are threatened by pending mergers with overlapping hubs.