This time Pittsburgh's new airport is being built for Pittsburghers
It's also going to be sized to serve the regional market, not the interests of an inefficient monopoly airline
In 1992 Pittsburgh's leaders -- i.e., Allegheny County officials -- built a gigantic new airport that was custom-made for their corporate pals at USAir, which needed it as a hub for tens of millions of interconnecting passengers in the golden era of hub airports.
In those days USAir -- arguably the worst-run airline at the time -- had a near monopoly in Pittsburgh -- about 90 percent of all flights -- that cost local consumers dearly.
Pittsburgh had some of the highest average fare prices in the country, which is why people with families of five, like me, could save about $200 a round-trip ticket by driving to airports in Cleveland or Buffalo when flying West.
Then USAir went bankrupt (predictably) and the far-seeing hacks in the county were stuck with a huge white elephant that was about three times the size needed to serve the tri-state Pittsburgh area.
Two thirds of the airport has been a closed-down ghost airport for years, but at least USAir's demise meant county officials were forced to open Pittsburgh's market to other carriers and soon Southwest Airlines -- now the dominant carrier -- came in and prices quickly fell, per usual.
Here's a good feature story by Virginia Linn, my old friend and good boss at the Post-Gazette in the 1990s, on the new mostly privately-funded airport.
Off the grid, it will be powered partly by nearly 10,000 solar panels (13 percent) and a battery of natural gas-powered generators (87 percent).
As explained very well by Forbes.com, the electric bill will be paid for in large part by revenues from the infinitude of Marcellus Shale natural gas under the airport that fracking wells are already tapping.
On Sunday Oct. 15, 1995, the front page of the Post-Gazette carried ‘Fare or Foul,’ the cleverly headlined article I wrote explain how USAir’s near-monopoly robbed Pittsburgh travelers every day.
It began:
Want to know the cheapest way to fly from Pittsburgh to Kansas City? Get in your car. Drive out the Parkway West to Pittsburgh International Airport and keep right on going. All the way to Cleveland.
That's exactly what the Duquesne Junior Tamburitzans and their parents did in July, when 40 of them had to get to their annual national dance conference in Kansas City.
Instead of paying $279 each for a Pittsburgh-Kansas City round-trip ticket on USAir, said Babette Guballa of Clairton, her group drove two hours to Cleveland's Hopkins International Airport.
From there, they flew to Kansas City and back on Northwest Airlines for $127 apiece saving them selves and their club a collective $5,080, less a few bucks for gasoline.
The junior Tammys are not alone. Many other price-conscious travelers and business people from Western Pennsylvania also have become Frequent Drivers to Cleveland, where, compared with Pittsburgh, tickets to many cities are always on sale.
Comparing airplane prices between cities is tricky. But travel agents, airline marketing people and other industry experts around the country generally agree that it costs more to fly in and out of Pittsburgh than most major cities.
According to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics, air fares in the Pittsburgh market were on average about 30 percent higher than Cleveland's for the first three months of 1995. DOT figures show the....
Etc.”