US Airways to keep shrinking in Las Vegas
By early 2012, US Airways will ax nonstop routes from Las Vegas to Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Fresno, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the process, US Airways' daily departures from Las Vegas will drop from 35 to 21, The Arizona Republic reports.
ON THE WEB: US Airways to cut 40% of Las Vegas flights
VegasInc.com notes the changes will demote US Airways "to one of the smaller players in the (Las Vegas) market." By late January, the airline will fly from Las Vegas only to its three hubs (Charlotte, Philadelphia and Phoenix) and one "focus city" (Washington Reagan National).The effort to focus the carrier's flights on those four airports has been one of US Airways' key profitability strategies.
If US Airways is able to gain more flights at Washington National via its proposed slot swap with Delta, the airline says about 98% of its flights will operate to or from one of those four airports. That, airline officials say, helps US Airways' bottom line by limiting competition to markets where it is a dominant player.
For Las Vegas, however, the cuts are a blow for a city that was once one of US Airways' key hubs.
VegasInc.com gives the historical perspective, writing:
America West Airlines was the dominant carrier at McCarran in the late 1980s and early 1990s and once operated a "night hub" at McCarran, connecting passengers on the airline's network through Las Vegas mostly after 10 p.m.
When America West acquired US Airways in 2005 and adopted its name, it closed the night hub because of the rising cost of fuel but operated a schedule of about 131 daily Las Vegas flights.
ARCHIVES: Dismantling Pittsburgh: Death of an airline hub (Oct. 15, 2007)
The flights that remained were eventually cut by 2009, grouping Las Vegas with Pittsburgh as cities that had become "former US Airways hubs" since 2004.
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