USPIT10L wrote:

That's DL's issue, not AA.....you're mixing up airlines.......

Not so. It WAS an AA issue, now something similar is said to be a DL issue. Separate, yes, but similar situations.

So PIT not being a mainline DL station... is this just urban legend or truth? I find it hard to believe considering we previously had daily B763s to CDG, all the 739s to ATL, handling numerous DL diversions, etc.

flyPIT wrote:

So PIT not being a mainline DL station... is this just urban legend or truth? I find it hard to believe considering we previously had daily B763s to CDG, all the 739s to ATL, handling numerous DL diversions, etc.

Anyone can handle diversions tbh. Look at the level of mainline service that is offered from places that have both above and below wing workers through Delta, you'll notice there is generously more mainline flights.

A few good examples are BHM, there is a ton of flights to ATL on mainline aircraft, but everywhere else is RJ's. CLE is all mainline to ATL, but has a significant number of RJ's going elsewhere. I'm sure if MYR wasn't contracted out, you'd see more mainline flying there. Non hubs with a significant amount of mainline flights that have DL workers both above and below are places like DFW, FL stations (MCO, TPA, RSW, FLL, MIA), MSY, IND, BNA, etc.

flyPIT wrote:

So PIT not being a mainline DL station... is this just urban legend or truth? I find it hard to believe considering we previously had daily B763s to CDG, all the 739s to ATL, handling numerous DL diversions, etc.

So I have never heard of an airline not bring able to willingly add extra flights because they already have to many flights, but if this is true, couldn't DL remove a couple of flights from ATL and change the planes from 737-900 to A321 or 757?

flyPIT wrote:

So PIT not being a mainline DL station... is this just urban legend or truth? I find it hard to believe considering we previously had daily B763s to CDG, all the 739s to ATL, handling numerous DL diversions, etc.

All Delta staff above wing at PIT is mainline while everyone below wing is DGS. Most stations that are ground handled entirely by DGS are not considered to be "mainline". This is likely where this supposed cap comes from. But I'm not fully sure if such exists. So again, someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

flymco753 wrote:

Anyone can handle diversions tbh. Look at the level of mainline service that is offered from places that have both above and below wing workers through Delta, you'll notice there is generously more mainline flights.

A few good examples are BHM, there is a ton of flights to ATL on mainline aircraft, but everywhere else is RJ's. CLE is all mainline to ATL, but has a significant number of RJ's going elsewhere. I'm sure if MYR wasn't contracted out, you'd see more mainline flying there.

PIT is practically in the same boat. Almost entirely B739s to ATL right now but barely any mainline to elsewhere. Only one daily mainline flight to DTW (currently on a B712) and the daily SLC flight (A319). MSP is showing all-RJ until May when a daily A319 is added, then two of the four daily flights will be on an A320 and A321 for S20.

JFK/LGA/BOS/RDU are exclusively on CRJs or E-jets. CUN is flown seasonally on a B739 that would have otherwise done a turn back to ATL.

ctrabs0114 wrote:

I'm curious as to what DL will be sending to fly the Steelers to EWR for this Sunday's game against the Jets.

Looks like they will be on a B763 this weekend.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/DL8869

November numbers are out; things took quite a negative turn. Total passengers are down 3.2% with int'l up only 2.1%.
https://www.flypittsburgh.com/getattachment/Newsroom/Airport-Statistics/November-2019-Short-E-Mail-Report.pdf.aspx?lang=en-US

I think it's safe to assume CLE will overtake PIT in for 2019 for total passengers. The Sunday after Thanksgiving (the busiest travel day of the year) in 2018 was in November, in 2019 it was in December. This must have been a large factor.

Some Terminal Modernization Plan news, the airlines have requested the amount of ticket counters be increased by 40%:
https://www.post-gazette.com/business/development/2019/12/20/Pittsburgh-International-Airport-LEED-Gensler-modernization-landside-terminal/stories/201912200130



In economic development news, venture capital funding in Pittsburgh has increased by an incredible 727% in 2019. Funding is at $1.2 billion. It was just a few years ago that figure in Pittsburgh was in the low triple digits. The article also labels Pittsburgh as one of 11 "funding hubs".
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/12/18/bay-area-venture-funding-report-crunchbase.html

A new Brookings Institute report ranks Pittsburgh very favorably to become one of America's future Innovation growth cernters:
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Full-Report-Growth-Centers_PDF_BrookingsMetro-BassCenter-ITIF.pdf
(page 64 & 88)

That VC increase is an eye popping number. Pittsburgh raising $1.2 billion is putting us in the same tier as far larger metros. Philly and Atlanta at $1.4, Miami at $1.5....I was trying to find the full list but haven't been able to. Interesting that it's the San Jose Biz Times calling Pittsburgh out in that article, not the PGH Biz Times.

Random note. Just flew a UA e145 PIT-EWR this evening. New livery, but unpleasant. Oversold, tons of groaning passengers with bags. That was a first....I'm guessing holiday swap? Hopefully never again.

Has anybody seen the flying goat in and out PIT so far? Is the QR flight cancelled?

AaronPGH wrote:

Random note. Just flew a UA e145 PIT-EWR this evening. New livery, but unpleasant. Oversold, tons of groaning passengers with bags. That was a first....I'm guessing holiday swap? Hopefully never again.

Holiday swap. UA, DL and a few others have downgraded equipment or reduced frequency on a number of routes for the holiday period. Most of the ERJs appear to be going away after the first week of January.

RichardWelling wrote:

Has anybody seen the flying goat in and out PIT so far? Is the QR flight cancelled?

Looks like the Tuesday evening flight is axed :/
https://www.qrcargo.com/docs/03.%20Winter%2019%20Freighter%20Schedule%20Issue%203.pdf

IIRC this is the flight that was accommodating EFL Logistics of Sri Lanka, so this is interesting.

The Saturday morning flight is currently enroute to ORD which has a flight plan filed to continue to PIT:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/QTR8142

Runway28L wrote:

AaronPGH wrote:

Random note. Just flew a UA e145 PIT-EWR this evening. New livery, but unpleasant. Oversold, tons of groaning passengers with bags. That was a first....I'm guessing holiday swap? Hopefully never again.

Holiday swap. UA, DL and a few others have downgraded equipment or reduced frequency on a number of routes for the holiday period. Most of the ERJs appear to be going away after the first week of January.

Can confirm. Will be taking AA 3302 DFW-PIT tomorrow, annnnd it's on an Envoy 175 lol

Honestly, I love the 175s. That's the usual ride to EWR and I think they're super comfortable.

flyPIT wrote:

RichardWelling wrote:

Has anybody seen the flying goat in and out PIT so far? Is the QR flight cancelled?

Looks like the Tuesday evening flight is axed :/
https://www.qrcargo.com/docs/03.%20Winter%2019%20Freighter%20Schedule%20Issue%203.pdf

IIRC this is the flight that was accommodating EFL Logistics of Sri Lanka, so this is interesting.

The Saturday morning flight is currently enroute to ORD which has a flight plan filed to continue to PIT:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/QTR8142

Lets hope the flight comes back to PIT! It was a nice fixture in the airport.

flyPIT wrote:

The Saturday morning flight is currently enroute to ORD which has a flight plan filed to continue to PIT:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/QTR8142

Looks like it went straight back to LUX from ORD, and the Flight Activity history from FlightAware shows it did the same last week too. What a huge blow this appears to be for PIT's efforts to increase cargo traffic. I wonder what happened to the EFL Logistics deal that powered the Tuesday flight that is not even showing in the schedule anymore.

Runway28L wrote:

PIT is practically in the same boat. Almost entirely B739s to ATL right now but barely any mainline to elsewhere. Only one daily mainline flight to DTW (currently on a B712) and the daily SLC flight (A319). MSP is showing all-RJ until May when a daily A319 is added, then two of the four daily flights will be on an A320 and A321 for S20.

JFK/LGA/BOS/RDU are exclusively on CRJs or E-jets. CUN is flown seasonally on a B739 that would have otherwise done a turn back to ATL.

To be fair, even in the NW days PIT-DTW and PIT-MSP were largely a mix of DC-9s and mostly ARJ-85s, which transitioned over to mostly CR9s and E75s. I remember flying back from a holiday trip to Vancouver, and MSP-PIT was flown on a Delta Connection CRJ-200 (that was a strange flight for all sorts of reasons).

flyPIT wrote:

flyPIT wrote:

The Saturday morning flight is currently enroute to ORD which has a flight plan filed to continue to PIT:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/QTR8142

Looks like it went straight back to LUX from ORD, and the Flight Activity history from FlightAware shows it did the same last week too. What a huge blow this appears to be for PIT's efforts to increase cargo traffic. I wonder what happened to the EFL Logistics deal that powered the Tuesday flight that is not even showing in the schedule anymore.

After some googling, it appears EFL has an office/warehouse in CMH. I am sure EFL is trucking all their inbound PIT freight to CMH/LCK. It would make more sense if they moved the flight to CMH/LCK instead of PIT if they want to focus the flight on EFL.

flyPIT wrote:

flyPIT wrote:

The Saturday morning flight is currently enroute to ORD which has a flight plan filed to continue to PIT:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/QTR8142

Looks like it went straight back to LUX from ORD, and the Flight Activity history from FlightAware shows it did the same last week too. What a huge blow this appears to be for PIT's efforts to increase cargo traffic. I wonder what happened to the EFL Logistics deal that powered the Tuesday flight that is not even showing in the schedule anymore.

Nothing happened. It is a short term cut in response to declining freight volumes caused by the US/China trade conflict. Nothing more. Nothing less.

RichardWelling wrote:

After some googling, it appears EFL has an office/warehouse in CMH. I am sure EFL is trucking all their inbound PIT freight to CMH/LCK. It would make more sense if they moved the flight to CMH/LCK instead of PIT if they want to focus the flight on EFL.

EFL had that Columbus office since before they began using PIT.

But if they are trucking everything from PIT, I am sure it would be more cost effective for EFL to have the flight diverted to CMH/LCK instead of PIT.

RichardWelling wrote:

But if they are trucking everything from PIT, I am sure it would be more cost effective for EFL to have the flight diverted to CMH/LCK instead of PIT.

If you look at LCK website under cargo charter airline flights you can see Qatar Cargo on that list. I was looking at information on the new Asiana flight into LCK and noticed that the other day.

RichardWelling wrote:

But if they are trucking everything from PIT, I am sure it would be more cost effective for EFL to have the flight diverted to CMH/LCK instead of PIT.

So that they can truck everything from LCK instead? What difference does it make if everything is trucked from LCK vs. PIT? LCK is most likely a more cost effective airport but do we know what QR's rate structure is at PIT to make that point a certainty?

Again, EFL had that operation at LCK before QR started PIT. My point was why would EFL agree to use PIT after they opened their LCK operation? For whatever reason, they did. The only counterpoint I can think of is Emirates and Etihad Cargo also provide lift for EFL and they both have scheduled service to LCK so perhaps EFL is using them more lately. I dunno.

Delta28L wrote:

If you look at LCK website under cargo charter airline flights you can see Qatar Cargo on that list. I was looking at information on the new Asiana flight into LCK and noticed that the other day.

QR Cargo has operated charters to LCK before they started a scheduled operation at PIT:
https://aircargoworld.com/allposts/qatar-airways-cargos-first-777f-charter-flight-arrives-in-columbus/





At this point, this is all we know:
-QR's Tuesday flight was realigned to operate DOH-LUX-PIT (placing ORD after PIT) to accommodate EFL. This flight is now completely eliminated from the current QR Cargo timetable.
-The other flight (which I assume handles non-EFL cargo as EFL's PIT operation was reported as "weekly", not twice weekly), which runs on a Saturday morning has completely bypassed PIT the past two weeks.
-Subsidies to QR ended in the Fall.

Until there is additional official information, that is all we know for certain.

flyPIT wrote:

RichardWelling wrote:

But if they are trucking everything from PIT, I am sure it would be more cost effective for EFL to have the flight diverted to CMH/LCK instead of PIT.

So that they can truck everything from LCK instead? What difference does it make if everything is trucked from LCK vs. PIT? LCK is most likely a more cost effective airport but do we know what QR's rate structure is at PIT to make that point a certainty?

Again, EFL had that operation at LCK before QR started PIT. My point was why would EFL agree to use PIT after they opened their LCK operation? For whatever reason, they did. The only counterpoint I can think of is Emirates and Etihad Cargo also provide lift for EFL and they both have scheduled service to LCK so perhaps EFL is using them more lately. I dunno.

Delta28L wrote:

If you look at LCK website under cargo charter airline flights you can see Qatar Cargo on that list. I was looking at information on the new Asiana flight into LCK and noticed that the other day.

QR Cargo has operated charters to LCK before they started a scheduled operation at PIT:
https://aircargoworld.com/allposts/qatar-airways-cargos-first-777f-charter-flight-arrives-in-columbus/





At this point, this is all we know:
-QR's Tuesday flight was realigned to operate DOH-LUX-PIT (placing ORD after PIT) to accommodate EFL. This flight is now completely eliminated from the current QR Cargo timetable.
-The other flight (which I assume handles non-EFL cargo as EFL's PIT operation was reported as "weekly", not twice weekly), which runs on a Saturday morning has completely bypassed PIT the past two weeks.
-Subsidies to QR ended in the Fall.

Until there is additional official information, that is all we know for certain.

EFL is paying double trucking right now. To truck the units from PIT, break them down and then truck it again to their clients or other EFL gateways i.e JFK or ORD. If the flight terminated in LCK/CMH, it would eliminate the need to truck twice.

I hear PIT has been a mess today due to fog. I have family flying in that has been rebooked twice today. I feel for everyone dealing with that holiday hassle.

TYSflyer wrote:

I hear PIT has been a mess today due to fog. I have family flying in that has been rebooked twice today. I feel for everyone dealing with that holiday hassle.

Indeed. Ended up sitting for 2½ hours waiting for 3302 to go out after it diverted to MDT before cancelling. Threw a hail Mary and got out on OH 5375 after it had been delayed for 4 hours, then had to ZED on WN down to DAL after missing the last flight to DFW. Fun times all around.

Looked like a mess indeed. Here is this morning's B6 BOS-PIT flight that ended up in CLE. While I'm not familiar with JetBlue's authorizations, with a HUD on the E190 I'm surprised they were not able to get in using 10L (the CAt II/III runway). Looks like they lined up for it but never flew the full approach then made a go of it to 10R after some holding.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/b61285#234e2d15

Of note, back in the busy days both 10L and 10R had Cat III certification. Now it's only 10L. 10R appears to have a Special Authorization Cat 1 approach that has minimums of 1400' RVR with a DA of 150'


Also of significance, the ILS 10L CAT II/III is NOT authorized to one of the integrators and their MD-11s and 747s. So here we are, the only operator to fly the MD-11 to PIT is limited to Cat I minimums. I'm not sure if it is company issue or a PIT issue but it seems a bit ridiculous that PIT is pushing to be both a diversionary airport and a larger cargo airport and this restriction exists, especially if it is for all MD-11 and 747 fleets..

Uber has bought 600 acres of land (almost the size of La Gaurdia) adjacent to the Westport Industrial park and Amazon's new fulfillment center southwest of PIT to further the development of self driving cars:
https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2019/12/26/uber-makes-big-land-buy-behind-new-amazon-facility.html

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