[Vigilanteman]

I'm with you. Just because it is printed in the Washington ComPost doesn't necessarily mean it is a lie. For years US Airlines held our local Pittsburgh Airport hostage because they were going to cancel flights, remove their hub and lay off thousands of employees unless the taxpayers in the region granted them certain subsidies.

Each year, they would up the ante. Finally Allegheny County did something really risky and actually elected a Republican as county commissioner. He persuaded one of the Dems on the commission who wasn't totally dense on economic issues to join him and say "enough!".

US Air delivered on their threat, pulled their hub and layed off thousands of their staff. They went from controlling maybe 70% of all departure gates then to around 30% now.

So the Pittsburgh area lost most of their airline service and the airport closed down, right?

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Actually, Southwest, TransAir and slew of other airlines moved in to fill up the gap. People who used to fly to Cleveland for flights now leave from Pittsburgh. And fares have dropped by an average of nearly 40%. Who would've thunk it?

[proudofthesouth]

I don’t know if you are aware of it but back when U.S. Air was Allegheny Airlines their nickname was “Agony Airlines” cause it was agony to fly them!

[BCrago66]

Sorry to keep coming back with only partially developed thoughts, but perhaps part of the problem is with government subsidies and/or lenient bankruptcy judges, which seem to allow these airlines to stiff their creditors, re-organize, and then survive only to stiff their creditors (and customers) once again. I know that some airlines have been twice bankrupt, and that USAir has gone through bankruptcy at least once.

Maybe instead of allowing these debt-ridden, poorly managed businesses to keep screwing the customer, bankruptcy judges should - within the discretion allowed by the pertinent statutes - allow these airlines to just liquidate and die.