I've been quietly following this discussion and this has to be the most interesting thread on DAC in a long, long time! A couple things come to mind that maybe you guys can shed light on for me here.
Gearboy pointed out that there's no limitations on capacity at Pittsburgh and Charlotte, but there's not enough O&D traffic out of those locations. I seem to remember reading somewhere that for a hub to be successful, it has to generate a significant amount of O&D traffic or the hub fails. This was pointed out to be factor (though clearly not the ONLY factor) in the demise of Western Pacific (hub'd at COS) and Braniff II (hub'd at MCI). There was an article in a local paper when I used to live in Kansas City that suggested MCI would never be a viable hub since there's not a whole lot of O&D traffic there. But it seems to me there are a lot of similarly sized cities to KC that have hubs- Milwaukee and Omaha are hubs for Midwest Express, Memphis for Northwest and Cleveland for Continental. And then there are cities that are ex-hubs (Nashville and Raleigh for American). Is O&D the only factor?
American's pilots at one point recently suggested folding the RJ's into the mainline and have them flown by mainline pilots. Is this what is being considered for USAirways? My understanding of what American's pilots were suggesting was to get the furloughed pilots first to fly the RJs then get from the ranks of American Eagle. It seems to me this is a bit of an about face by mainline pilots in regards to RJs, isn't it?
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Piss on noise abatement!
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