As one who has endured countless hours in PHL while flying US Airways and dealing with their personnel, I cannot say that I am greatly surprised.
They controlled 70% of our gates and it was a high stakes gamble when we told them to go ahead and downgrade PIT.
We lost a lot of direct flights. But the average air fare plunged by 30% when Delta, Jet Blue, Southwest and others moved in to scoop up the available lanes abandoned by USeless Air. It used to be that people from here drove to Cleveland to get decent air fares. Nopw people from Cleveland drive here, judging by the number of Ohio license plates in long term parking, which is operating at close to 90% of capacity.