As the topic states, Why do they have so many gates here @ SYR? For the amount of flights that go thru our airport, all of the airlines would fit into Terminal A. This would give each airline about 2 gates with the exception on jetBlue and Northwest who already operate with one gate now. The airport could then just operate/maintain the A terminal. Does USAirways have a contract where these gates are leased? Any info is appreciated.


Thanks,
B727
Glenn

They used to have a hub there-actually, it was a Piedmont hub before US absorbed Piedmont. It could be they still own a lot of the gates there from the days when it was a hub for them.

If memory serves those gates came to Piedmont from a little airline called Empire. I believe they operated F28s and something else.

It seems like a waste if US doesn't use them and doesn't need them. A money loosing company like US should be dropping them to reduce costs. I bet they have them on some kind of long term lease or maybe them even own them.

Another example of poor planning at US. They rejected the gate leases at PIT while under CH 11. Why not SYR? Sounds like that would have been the easiest way to reduce expenses...

Empire flew the F-28s as well as Swearingen Metroliners in Upstate NY as well as other New England and Great Lakes areas.

It seems like gate squatting is USAirways' specialty. At almost every airport I've been to that USAirways serves, it seems like they have a few gates that are never used and some that are used rarely.

Don't they have quite a few gates at MCO and TPA?

They also have huge numbers of gates in other upstate cities like ROC and BUF.

Why didn't they reject these leases during bankruptcy? They haven't been able to keep competition out of any of the cities mentioned here, except PIT. And they rejected those leases! Go figure...

They also have huge numbers of gates in other upstate cities like ROC and BUF.

I think they only have 5 gates at BUF which really isn't that many (and they all get used alot). Back in the heyday at BUF, US seemed to own the whole West Terminal.

Does anyone know how many they have at MCO?
thanks

I didn't count them but I noticed on Friday at MCO that there was a bunch of US Airways gates - most of them empty all the time.

Same here in BUF - whole "left" part of the terminal plus one gate on the "right" side. But... like it or not they have the biggest number of flights out of BUF. However if JetBlue can fly 7 dailies to JFK with one gate why US would need 5 or 6?

Daniel

US Airways has eight gates at ROC, and could probably function well there on about five or six. The airline still has lots of regional-jet and DeHavilland dailies at ROC and BUF to various Northeast business centers. Thus, US still needs to park 2-3 mainline and 3-4 regional a/c at once.

JetBlue, by contrast, operates to one destination, JFK, from ROC, SYR, and BUF. So they do fine with just one gate. However, once the EMB 190's come online, B6 has said they want to run nonstops from Upstate NY to Florida. (Probably FLL which is not served nonstop from UNY right now.) Also, JetBlue has also said they want to substitute 190's for A320's in the Upstate markets to offer greater frequencies for business travelers.

That means probably 11 or 12 daily 190's at BUF, 8 or 9 at ROC, and 6 or 7 at SYR. At SYR one gate will probably still be enough, but at BUF and ROC they'll probably want another gate.

The Rochester paper reports that our airport manager is pressing for 190 flights to BOS, an underserved market. But an AirTran c/s rep at BWI told me a couple of weeks ago that the airline will likely start running ROC and BUF nonstops to Boston ( FL doesn't have to wait til 2005 for 717's   )this year. AirTran already has two gates at ROC which would be sufficient to go from the current 7 dailies to probably 9. At BUF, FL would go from 4 to 6 in this scenario, which probably could be done at the existing gate.

Jim

SYR Was a US stronghold and like many communities in upstate, US (or its express carriers) was and may still be the dominant carrier. Ex. ITH (ONLY US EX) ELM-BGM (Most flights US) and in SYR it used to be almost an entire concourse for US. DL has 3 if I'm not mistaken at SYR. With the 170's coming in I'm not sure the load factors are high enough in SYR to keep mainline, despite the 170's being "mainline" jets.

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck it is probably a duck.
-Matt in KITH