flyPIT wrote:

PIT to get another off-site parking option:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... y-Near-PIT

Where will this be located?

CaptainMidnight wrote:

flyPIT wrote:

PIT to get another off-site parking option:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... y-Near-PIT

Where will this be located?

Right on Moon-Clinton Road @ Flaugherty Run Road. It will be across from The Parking Spot on your way to Dependable. It was developed/utilized as a construction parking lot for Cracker Plant workers (Shell would bus them up from there).

Feb numbers are out. Passengers up a nice 21%; cargo continues its slide, down 12%
https://flypittsburgh.com/wp-content/up ... report.pdf

I guess they decided to continue reporting cargo monthly after all.

This put PIT at 94% of 2019 passengers, 99% of 2019 seats, and a projection of 104% of 2019 seats in July. Seems like PIT is finally crawling back up to its historic position amougst peer airports, although there is a way to go.
https://www.post-gazette.com/business/d ... 2303170096

G4's been pretty lacklustre at PIT when it comes to new routes. Saying that, I'm not sure where it can expand service from PIT. Short-distance routes such as ORF and TYS didn't work out for them. Long distance routes like AZA and RAP didn't either. G4 has found their niche at PIT in a narrow corner of the country spanning from South Carolina to the Florida panhandle. Unfortunately there aren't that many places left in that part of the country they can add service to.
Elsewhere, PVU might work since DL dropping SLC left a vacuum, but if DL resume their service to the region first I don't think it's going to happen.
I had considered AVL, but its northern destinations are larger population centres such as NYC, Chicago and Washington. I'm not sure PIT would cut it.
Thoughts?

I'm surprised AZA didn't work out for G4 given the minimal service to PHX by AA and WN; also MSY considering there was no competition at all. I do admire them for trying some unusual routes. TYS and RAP didn't stick, but EYW and MLB have and are now year-round. BNA has hung around 3x weekly year round, I wouldn't have expected that.

Where they have been lackluster is frequency. Even their bread-and-butter Florida routes (PIE, PGD, SFB) only generate 3-4x weekly during peak months from PIT - far less than from other markets.

I do think PIT-USA (Concord, NC) would be a good route considering the huge amount of transplants in the Charlotte area. At over $600 r/t to CLT I think most VFR traffic drives (just like PHL); G4 could probably capture a good amount of that with cheap fares.

AVL probably would have been a better choice than TYS. I suppose they could try MSY again, as well as LAS. In the same vein as PIT-BNA I suppose they could add routes already adequately served such as PIT-DEN/MDW/FLL. 2x weekly to any of those won't cause the entrenched carriers to react much, if at all.

So as far as new G4 routes from PIT I'd go with AVL, USA, FLL, MSY, LAS and SAN.

flyPIT wrote:

I'm surprised AZA didn't work out for G4 given the minimal service to PHX by AA and WN; also MSY considering there was no competition at all. I do admire them for trying some unusual routes. TYS and RAP didn't stick, but EYW and MLB have and are now year-round. BNA has hung around 3x weekly year round, I wouldn't have expected that.

Where they have been lackluster is frequency. Even their bread-and-butter Florida routes (PIE, PGD, SFB) only generate 3-4x weekly during peak months from PIT - far less than from other markets.

I do think PIT-USA (Concord, NC) would be a good route considering the huge amount of transplants in the Charlotte area. At over $600 r/t to CLT I think most VFR traffic drives (just like PHL); G4 could probably capture a good amount of that with cheap fares.

AVL probably would have been a better choice than TYS. I suppose they could try MSY again, as well as LAS. In the same vein as PIT-BNA I suppose they could add routes already adequately served such as PIT-DEN/MDW/FLL. 2x weekly to any of those won't cause the entrenched carriers to react much, if at all.

So as far as new G4 routes from PIT I'd go with AVL, USA, FLL, MSY, LAS and SAN.

I wouldn’t read too much into AZA. They are cutting back multiple longer routes from there in favor of shorter routes they can get more legs a day out of. I think it’s going to be a trend from longer to shorter routes in general.

Welp. PIT-SNA on MX starts tomorrow yet Ishiron is saying the route's getting cut later this year along with CMH-SNA and CVG-SNA. Unsure if it's a permanent cut or going seasonal. There are supposedly more MX routes being announced, so PIT may grab something else instead. Fingers crossed.
https://twitter.com/IshrionA/status/1641611647482568705

flyPIT wrote:

I'm surprised AZA didn't work out for G4 given the minimal service to PHX by AA and WN

Upon closer inspection, G4 timed things very badly. The worst service to PHX happened before it started and after it ended:
Mar 2021: AA cuts its 1x weekly PIT-PHX, WN continues at 1x daily
Aug 2021: G4 starts PIT-AZA, however AA resumes 1x daily PIT-PHX the same month. WN is still 1x daily
Feb 2022: G4 cuts PIT-AZA
May 2022: AA cuts the 1x daily PIT-PHX
Jun 2022: WN reduces PIT-PHX to about 2x weekly for the rest of the year
Dec 2022: AA resumes 1x daily PIT-PHX

flyPIT wrote:

I do think PIT-USA (Concord, NC) would be a good route considering the huge amount of transplants in the Charlotte area. At over $600 r/t to CLT I think most VFR traffic drives (just like PHL); G4 could probably capture a good amount of that with cheap fares.

Yeah, I agree with you there. Could well be G4's next destination from PIT.

JamesRenard wrote:

Welp. PIT-SNA on MX starts tomorrow yet Ishiron is saying the route's getting cut later this year along with CMH-SNA and CVG-SNA. Unsure if it's a permanent cut or going seasonal. There are supposedly more MX routes being announced, so PIT may grab something else instead. Fingers crossed.
https://twitter.com/IshrionA/status/1641611647482568705

Well, breeze is adding PIT-LAX,2x weekly starting 9/8 and will offer a Breezethru option to TPA with a stop in CHS, starting 10/5

krod031 wrote:

Well, breeze is adding PIT-LAX,2x weekly starting 9/8 and will offer a Breezethru option to TPA with a stop in CHS, starting 10/5

Not sure if the TPA Breezethru will work out; especially when someone can go direct on PIT-Tampa on 3 other carriers.

MavyWavyATR wrote:

krod031 wrote:

Well, breeze is adding PIT-LAX,2x weekly starting 9/8 and will offer a Breezethru option to TPA with a stop in CHS, starting 10/5

Not sure if the TPA Breezethru will work out; especially when someone can go direct on PIT-Tampa on 3 other carriers.

Who is the third? Southwest and Spirit, but spirit made it seasonal last year and at one point Southwest only had a single daily flight, which was constantly full.

flightsimer wrote:

MavyWavyATR wrote:

krod031 wrote:

Well, breeze is adding PIT-LAX,2x weekly starting 9/8 and will offer a Breezethru option to TPA with a stop in CHS, starting 10/5

Not sure if the TPA Breezethru will work out; especially when someone can go direct on PIT-Tampa on 3 other carriers.

Who is the third? Southwest and Spirit, but spirit made it seasonal last year and at one point Southwest only had a single daily flight, which was constantly full.

Could be thinking of G4's PIT-PIE service...

krod031 wrote:

JamesRenard wrote:

Welp. PIT-SNA on MX starts tomorrow yet Ishiron is saying the route's getting cut later this year along with CMH-SNA and CVG-SNA. Unsure if it's a permanent cut or going seasonal. There are supposedly more MX routes being announced, so PIT may grab something else instead. Fingers crossed.
https://twitter.com/IshrionA/status/1641611647482568705

Well, breeze is adding PIT-LAX,2x weekly starting 9/8 and will offer a Breezethru option to TPA with a stop in CHS, starting 10/5

I think the flight is just swapping from SNA to LAX.

When did Spirit go Daily on PIT-LAX?

flightsimer wrote:

When did Spirit go Daily on PIT-LAX?

July 13, 2017 - Once daily; 2nd frequency started 4/22/19, ended 3/18/2020.

krod031 wrote:

JamesRenard wrote:

Welp. PIT-SNA on MX starts tomorrow yet Ishiron is saying the route's getting cut later this year along with CMH-SNA and CVG-SNA. Unsure if it's a permanent cut or going seasonal. There are supposedly more MX routes being announced, so PIT may grab something else instead. Fingers crossed.
https://twitter.com/IshrionA/status/1641611647482568705

Well, breeze is adding PIT-LAX,2x weekly starting 9/8 and will offer a Breezethru option to TPA with a stop in CHS, starting 10/5

Very exciting it looks like we were the only ones to get a new breeze route today

Interesting. PIT's Facebook post for the inaugural PIT-SNA flight says it will be year-round.

When the flight was announced it was announced as year-round. That FB post was made only a few hours after the booking engine showed the switch to LAX - I doubt the ACAA even knew about it. Come to think of it, there hasn’t been any media coverage at all on this “new” flight to LAX.

One of the FB commenters was on the first flight to SNA, stated it was full. If it does well, then I really hate to see it get yanked out of SNA.

flyPIT wrote:

When the flight was announced it was announced as year-round. That FB post was made only a few hours after the booking engine showed the switch to LAX - I doubt the ACAA even knew about it. Come to think of it, there hasn’t been any media coverage at all on this “new” flight to LAX.

One of the FB commenters was on the first flight to SNA, stated it was full. If it does well, then I really hate to see it get yanked out of SNA.

I agree, but if it helps the chances of getting SAN, then I’m for the shift.

Don’t look into PIt-SNA going seasonal too much. Currently Breeze only has 3 slots there and is duking it out with Allegiant on PVU-SNA which is going double daily.

Until more slots are acquired, PiT-SNA would never be able to expand unlike how PIt-LAX can. It’s also interesting that neither CVG or CMH, who both share the 3rd SNA slot with PIT received the LAX replacement.

flightsimer wrote:

Don’t look into PIt-SNA going seasonal too much. Currently Breeze only has 3 slots there and is duking it out with Allegiant on PVU-SNA which is going double daily.

Until more slots are acquired, PiT-SNA would never be able to expand unlike how PIt-LAX can. It’s also interesting that neither CVG or CMH, who both share the 3rd SNA slot with PIT received the LAX replacement.

It’s possible that still happens, especially given that no announcement has been made.

a320flyer wrote:

flightsimer wrote:

Don’t look into PIt-SNA going seasonal too much. Currently Breeze only has 3 slots there and is duking it out with Allegiant on PVU-SNA which is going double daily.

Until more slots are acquired, PiT-SNA would never be able to expand unlike how PIt-LAX can. It’s also interesting that neither CVG or CMH, who both share the 3rd SNA slot with PIT received the LAX replacement.

It’s possible that still happens, especially given that no announcement has been made.

True, but they have extended the schedules out through the end of November. While they could still be added it looks like most of if not all of the schedule is set.

DL is resuming mainline service to MSP next month. Starts off 1x weekly on May 13th, then goes 1x daily from Jun 5th. Looks to be a year-round service.

Some changes to the cargo network. Appears the morning FX PIT-MEM departure now routes PIT-ABE-MEM twice a week. FedEx has been in retraction mode systemwide, and here at PIT the number of flights are down by up to two flights a day from a year or so ago. That's a significant drop in capacity.

Prime Air has reinstated PIT-AFW, sort of. Instead of Sun Country operating LAL-PIT-LAL it now goes LAL-PIT-AFW one way. So overall capacity remains unchanged.


LBE was awarded a nearly $1miilion grant for ATC tower improvements.
https://triblive.com/local/westmoreland ... rovements/


What an uphill battle the ACAA has regarding attracting new service. Hot on the heals of the report Allegheny County lost more residents than almost anywhere else during Covid, the WSJ just published a report ranking the labor markets of the 56 largest metro areas for 2022. Pittsburgh came dead last.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/see-how-yo ... s-baa065d0
Not only that but since 2017 Allegheny County lost 50,000 jobs, twice as many as Cuyahoga County - the worst performing county in Ohio.
https://www.post-gazette.com/business/c ... 2303140107
All indicators point to a significant ongoing economic decline regionally post-Covid while most of the nation has recovered.

Speaking of FedEx, parent company will be merging Pittsburgh headquartered FedEx Ground with FedEx Express and other units. What will this mean for the FedEx Ground corporate headquarters and the roughly 2,000 people that work there?

"FedEx Ground said Wednesday afternoon that a corporate restructuring that will see its air and ground operations combined under one umbrella in 2024 will have no immediate impact on the Pittsburgh region."
https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/ ... tions.html

"Immediate" impact is the key word. With FedEx Express hq'd in MEM, I don't see any scenario where Pittsburgh is not significantly impacted in a negative way longer term. Unless they consolidate the headquarters in Pittsburgh... which I don't see happening in a million years.


On a brighter note, the vice president of marketing and communications at Breeze recently stated:
"“Pittsburgh was one of the original cities in our network when we started. We’re coming up on our two-year anniversary and the response from this community has been just phenomenal. The growth potential for Breeze here is sky high. It’s just a matter of where do we go next?”"
https://blueskypit.com/2023/04/03/after ... ia-breeze/

PIT's instragram has a post about parking becoming scarce...

Took the inaugural PIT-SNA flight and back the following Monday. Outbound was like 95% full surprisingly. My first time seeing the PR stuff at the gate. The VP of Comms at Breeze was on the flight and introduced herself over the PA. Flight was fine, landing was weird - after touchdown the pilot slammed on the brakes, as if he didn't realize how short the runway was. Then later taxied right past our open gate at SNA... Never saw that happen before. The return looked around 70% full, with ~ 20-30 ppl staying on for the flight up to PVD.

"Authorization is requested to approve Amendment #2 to Contract #4895 with Alisha Wormsley. This amendment will increase the contract amount by $435,000.00 from $15,000.00 to $450,000.00. This amendment is necessary to implement the artwork to be placed at the International Arrivals Corridor."
https://flypittsburgh.com/wp-content/up ... y-2023.pdf (page 3)

Sounds a bit excessive for artwork. I'd prefer that money be used to buy another international route. Must be nice to be Alisha Wormsley, whoever the hell that is.

flyPIT wrote:

Speaking of FedEx, parent company will be merging Pittsburgh headquartered FedEx Ground with FedEx Express and other units. What will this mean for the FedEx Ground corporate headquarters and the roughly 2,000 people that work there?

Given the dumpster fire that Fedex Ground seems to have turned into, I doubt it means anything good. I have no way of knowing whether their problems start in Pittsburgh or Memphis; I rather imagine that the latter at least partly blames the former, though.

PITingres wrote:

Given the dumpster fire that Fedex Ground seems to have turned into, I doubt it means anything good. I have no way of knowing whether their problems start in Pittsburgh or Memphis; I rather imagine that the latter at least partly blames the former, though.

So the issue isn’t the service quality of FedEx products, as good or bad as they are.

FedEx Ground has 2000 high paying corporate jobs here, plus the parent company keeps a good portion of their corporate fleet at PIT. All subject to be moved out.

Looks like Breeze's PIT-SNA flight moves to PIT-LAX at the beginning of September? I didn't realize this was happening.

Clevelander who drove to PIT for the London flight in the past week, and kudos was really very positive experience-- so now not only am I jealous that you have an NFL team and we don't, but also that you have your city on the departure screen at LHR, a beautiful thing to see amongst the world's great cities served from that airport. OK so the immigration hall is a little tired but it's spacious from back in the day and I was pleased with all the hustling, luggage was quick, immigration was quick, the train procedure was a little goofy I think flyPIT has pointed that out on this forum, but it worked just fine with minimal waiting. Parking just about half the cost of CLE. The only thing "negative" I'll say is I used AA miles to fly business class to France and I thought it was very good value compared to other options I dug up-- function of low loads or time of year? Who the heck knows.

And by the way it's often discussed how inflated economic impact is of these flights to justify the subsidy that ACAA and others make-- well here was my economic impact-- $90 parking, $8 at the newsstand, ridiculously too high tolls on the PA turnpike, plus any PFCs embedded in the fees on my ticket-- a real windfall. Something tells me I'm pretty typical of most all the pax on board, the crowd did not seem loaded with visitors to PIT but that's hard to say.

Some unfortunate deja-vu at AGC. For the second year in a row, a small aircraft has gone off the end of the same runway. This runway has a severe drop at the end; it does not meet RESA standards although a multi-million dollar fix is in the master plan.

The sole occupant did not sustain life threatening injuries.
https://www.wtae.com/article/allegheny- ... /43556260#


Unfortunately this aircraft belongs to All ATP flight school which just set up shop at AGC last year:

"ATP Flight School now boarding students for classes with its new training center at Allegheny County Airport"
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-rele ... rtage.html

This is really great news for AGC. More training means more touch & go's which means more operations which means a better chance at grant money. Funny, I was just looking at a map of their locations a few months ago and thought a Pittsburgh location would fill a hole in this part of the country. Curious how many planes will be based here.

https://atpflightschool.com/locations/

Unless they have recently expanded they only had one aircraft based at AGC.

AaronPGH wrote:

Since we're doing personal anecdotes here...I'll never have kids, and I constantly take INTL flights. I like nice architecture and getting my checked bags promptly, none of which is happening now. I also lament the fact that we're one of the only major airports without CLEAR. I have NEVER seen a TSA Pre line as bad as PIT's in the morning rush. Half the time I end up just taking the first class line even though I am Pre because it stretches all the way down to the parking doors. We need these fixes.

Clear was recently (i.e. last month) advertising a General Manager position for PIT. Presumably this means they’re some way into plans to open for business here.

https://www.startwire.com/jobs/pittsbur ... 250201/amp

Just flew out of PIT Monday morning for the 5:40 AM DL ATL flight. Not sure if its been covered here recently, but only 1 train is currently running which was causing huge backups in the train waiting area. I understand that the whole area is under construction, but they really need to work on a better solution than just shutting down a train. I'd never been packed so tightly into it before - if I didn't know any better I would've thought I was in Tokyo at rush hour. Just a heads up for anyone flying in or out in the near future...

Pittsburgher wrote:

Just flew out of PIT Monday morning for the 5:40 AM DL ATL flight. Not sure if its been covered here recently, but only 1 train is currently running which was causing huge backups in the train waiting area. I understand that the whole area is under construction, but they really need to work on a better solution than just shutting down a train. I'd never been packed so tightly into it before - if I didn't know any better I would've thought I was in Tokyo at rush hour. Just a heads up for anyone flying in or out in the near future...

Only one train operates late at night into the early morning. Not sure when the times specifically are, but that’s fairly normal. That down time is the only time they have to maintain the trains. They flip every other day on which train is removed.

Head scratcher, the busiest time for a nonhub airport is the early morning when all the RON's leave within an hour or two of each other. A shutdown at 12 noon would be much wiser, no?

ncflyer wrote:

Head scratcher, the busiest time for a nonhub airport is the early morning when all the RON's leave within an hour or two of each other. A shutdown at 12 noon would be much wiser, no?

Agreed - whatever the reason is, its a bad time to have 1 train running.

Pittsburgher wrote:

ncflyer wrote:

Head scratcher, the busiest time for a nonhub airport is the early morning when all the RON's leave within an hour or two of each other. A shutdown at 12 noon would be much wiser, no?

Agreed - whatever the reason is, its a bad time to have 1 train running.

Unfortunately, they've done that for 20 years as a cost-saving measure, guys.....IIRC, it's down to one train between 10p and 6a. I remember waiting for a train at 4:30a to start a ramp shift I'd swapped into back in August of 2004....I also remember waiting at 2a for one train only after finishing a cabin service shift back in late 2003.

Some non-airline news at LBE, two more hangars and expanded flight school in the works:
https://triblive.com/local/westmoreland ... y-airport/

Great to see this kind of development. LBE has been developing their GA/Corporate facilities steadily over the decades, unlike AGC which seems so stagnant in comparison. LBE is probably the nicest GA airport in the state.


DC-3 "Yukon Sourdough" will be at this year's airshow (finally something different).




The "Laurel Valley Transportation Improvement Project" is a fancy term for some major improvements to Rt. 981 from Mt. Pleasant to LBE. Work will include realignments and roundabouts. This will greatly improve access to the airport from the south, especially if a proposed Turnpike interchange happens. Scheduled for completion by 2026
https://laurelvalleyproject.com/

October International Loads

BA LHR 74.5% (69% out, 80.5% in)
AC YYZ 68.5%

Jshank83 wrote:

October International Loads

BA LHR 74.5% (69% out, 80.5% in)
AC YYZ 68.5%

Do you have any peer market data for LHR?

I don't think we got Sept reported:

PIT-LHR 79%, Cargo non-existent
LHR-PIT 73%, Cargo good

The above highlights the problem the ACAA has had in maintaining int'l cargo flights. Massive trade lane imbalance means airplanes go out empty which is not good for the airlines. This region does not manufacture much of anything; yet another metric on how the area's weak economy negatively impacts the airport.

PITfall wrote:

Jshank83 wrote:

October International Loads

BA LHR 74.5% (69% out, 80.5% in)
AC YYZ 68.5%

Do you have any peer market data for LHR?

You can spend all day here:
http://aviationdb.net/aviationdb/F4SDetailQuery#SUBMIT

PITfall wrote:

Jshank83 wrote:

October International Loads

BA LHR 74.5% (69% out, 80.5% in)
AC YYZ 68.5%

Do you have any peer market data for LHR?

The link posted above is good but usually it takes a bit to get the newest month's numbers up.

Other markets (not sure which you consider peer)
SAN 88%
BNA 85%
BWI 84%
MSY 81.5%
AUS 79.5%
SJC 69.5% - Cut OCT 2023

I find these loads pretty underwhelming yet BA going to 6x weekly this summer. Maybe the thought is there will be less leakage of business travelers?

Also of note the loads aren’t quite as imbalanced in each direction as they were in previous months FlyPit reported.

One positive thing PIT has going for it is when comparing with those other markets listed (with the exception of BWI), BA saves about 3 hours worth of operational costs round trip.

Found this from the ACAA website:

"Project Description:
The Authority is seeking to engage a suitably qualified Contractor to carefully review and update the existing Development Plan. The next iteration of the Plan shall be referred to as the “Economic Market Analysis and Sustainable Development Strategy for PIT” (Sustainable Development Plan). With a goal of leaving a long-lasting legacy through its innovative approach, the updated Plan shall continue to provide the Authority with a highly flexible, robust, and financially efficient development approach for the foreseeable future."
https://flypittsburgh.bonfirehub.com/op ... ties/88421


I assume this is the "existing Development Plan" that will be updated:



I'm most curious about the "South Field" site, best illustrated here:



Less "Neighborhood 91" nonsense and more aviation related development would be most welcome.

A bit of a ramp up with United's PIT-EWR route. By Oct it will be 11x daily, although all E-175.

flyPIT wrote:

A bit of a ramp up with United's PIT-EWR route. By Oct it will be 11x daily, although all E-175.

Suuuurrreee...

What are the odds that it gets cut back a few frequencies as they add to other routes? Or just have fewer flights into EWR so hopefully the whole operation runs smoother. 11x daily feels like overkill

PIT - EWR 11x a day did not even exist in the USAir glory days. I wonder if they are protecting their turf.