US Airways plays its China card
In a space dispute with Phila. airport, it said it might not proceed with Beijing flight plans.
By Tom Belden
Inquirer Staff Writer
US Airways threatened yesterday to scuttle its plans to provide nonstop flights between Philadelphia and Beijing if airport officials allow Delta Air Lines to move into a disputed terminal. The threat drew jeers from city and airport officials, who had supported the airline's application for federal approval of the route because it would provide the region with direct flights to the capital of the world's fastest-growing major economy.
"We're just trying to be fair to all our carriers, with great deference to US Airways," City Aviation Director Charles J. Isdell said. "But they can't have their way all the time."
Andrew Nocella, US Airways' senior vice president for planning, said in an interview that the airline might also trim its European flights next summer if Delta is allowed to move as scheduled next week to Terminal A-East. US Airways has said the terminal, used for domestic and international flights since it opened in 1991, should be for international flights only. The airline has also argued that Delta operations could interfere with US Airways operations.
Officials from the airport and the airline - Philadelphia's largest, with more than 60 percent of the traffic - have argued for 18 months over how to accommodate Delta's request to cut its costs by moving to less-expensive gates and other space in the terminal.
"We thought from Day One this would be resolved," Nocella said. "We are just shocked" that Delta's move is proceeding, he said.
Delta's move would give more gates to Southwest Airlines, which now shares space in Terminal E with Delta. Southwest has indicated that it wants to start flights to cities it does not now serve from Philadelphia if it can get additional gates.
Isdell said that if US Airways carried through on its threat, it would be "a tremendous disappointment to everyone who supported the application for the China route, and an unnecessary disappointment at that."
US Airways leases 68 of the airport's 120 gates for domestic flights, and had access last summer to 17 additional airport gates for international service.
At the peak of last summer's vacation season, it operated 20 round-trip flights to Europe. Only a dozen of the European flights operate year-round.
US Airways received approval in September from the Department of Transportation to start the Philadelphia-Beijing service in spring 2009. The application received enthusiastic suport from city and state business and political leaders, including Gov. Rendell and Pennsylvania's U.S. senators.
City Commerce Director Stephanie Naidoff, Isdell's boss, said she shared the airport director's disappointment and believes the airline will be able to operate its international service efficiently with the gates it will have available.
The airline has rejected several proposals by airport officials to accommodate US Airways' overseas flights, including adding a wing to the main international concourse, Terminal A-West, within a couple of years, Isdell said.
Another rejected proposal would have provided US Airways with a fleet of high-level buses, called passenger transport vehicles, which allow flights to load and unload away from an airport gate when one isn't available. Airline officials said congestion in the ramp areas near its gates makes the plan unworkable.
In a statement issued by spokesman Charles Ardo, Rendell said he hoped the dispute could be reconciled, "but ultimately it's up to the parties, the city and the airport, to work things out."
Nocella said US Airways needed to begin working now to acquire new long-range Airbus jets capable of flying the almost-7,000-mile China route. That and other planning for the flights requires the airline to know this year that it will have a gate available for the service in about 17 months, he said.
"This is not about Southwest" and its effort to get more gates in competition with US Airways, he said.
Nocella said US Airways has recently started looking more closely at using its hubs in Charlotte, N.C., and Phoenix for more of its international service because of what it considers a shortage of gates at Philadelphia International.
Airline analysts, however, say US Airways has focused its overseas growth at Philadelphia because the region's large population provides more business than the other hubs.
Isdell said US Airways has proposed several ways to keep Delta and other airlines that have only domestic service in the airport's D and E terminals. "But none of those alternatives really work," he said, for numerous legal and practical reasons.
Mayor-elect Michael Nutter asked US Airways executives in a statement "to refrain from taking such drastic action until the next mayor has time to get a full briefing on the situation.
"This is not a time for threats," he said. "It is a time for cooperation."
