FLUG REVUE October 2004: Philadlelphia sees low-cost input

PHILADELPHIA AIRPORT

By Geoffrey P. Jones

Unlike many other big US cities, Philadelphia the burgeoning Pennsylvania city on the banks of the Delaware River, has just one airport with commercial airline services. This is Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) which currently ranks 18th in the US in terms of passenger traffic, 14th in the world terms of aircraft operations and 15th in terms of cargo. The city of Philadelphia is currently home to 1.434 million inhabitants and 13 % of the US population live within a 100 mile radius of PHL.

Worldwide, the Airports Council International (ACI) ranking for PHL for 2003 is the world's 32nd largest, similar to 1999. It is currently of comparable size to Charlotte (NC) and Paris (Orly). PHL handled 24.918 million passengers in 2000, 24.78 million in 2002 and 25 million in 2003. These passengers, plus freight and GA movements account for approximately 450,000 movements (an average of 1,230 per day) and the handling of 616,693 tons of freight.

PHL's dominant airline carrier is US Airways and US Airways Express accounting for 75 % of the airport's flights, the airline's third largest 'hub' after Pittsburgh and its close rival, their Charlotte hub in North Carolina. PHL is US Airways main international hub. Whilst US Airways other hubs may handle more passengers and aircraft, PHL is considered, by their Station Director, Ron Rhoderick, to be the airline's most important hub - "PHL has more diversity of traffic and high yields per passenger thanks to the large amount of origination traffic, the continuing high level of business flights and its international status".

In comparison, the second and third largest number of flights operated from PHL are by United (a mere 5.1 %) and American (5 %). However, these are just three of the 25 airlines that currently provide scheduled and regular seasonal charter services from PHL. These airlines provide non-stop flights to over 100 cities, of which 81 are US domestic and the increasingly important 30 + international destinations. About 60 % of the passengers are 'origin and destination', in other words they are not using PHL as a transfer airport but actually starting or completing their journey here. PHL, serving the huge business centres of this part of Pennsylvania, also claims that more than 60 % of the passengers using the airport are business travellers. The average number of seats per flight at PHL is 102, indicative of the dominant blend of short and medium haul flights with 'smaller' aircraft that are operated from here. This is changing though.

9/11 has had its effect at PHL as everywhere else. Fewer customers are now using air travel for shorter sector flights in the US and notably the US northeast, particularly business traffic. As the majority of US Airways and PHL's traffic was claimed as business then this has had a dramatic effect. Whilst US Airways emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2003, they are far from out of the woods yet as far as survival is concerned. The woes of the decline in business traffic will be compounded at Philadelphia from 9th May (2004) when the doyen of low-fare airlines, Southwest launches services with 14 daily non-stop flights from PHL, followed by a further 14 daily non-stops from 6th July. Frontier Airlines has also announced its intention to enter the PHL market in the summer, further compounding the possible effect on US Airways dominant position here.

However, its not quite 'black and white' at PHL for Southwest, because after many years of almost un-troubled ascendancy, the inauguration of services at PHL will be met by the airline's first significant labour unrest. Southwest flight attendants planned demonstrations at PHL to press for ongoing demands for concessions and stock options.

PHL is owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation's Bureau of Aviation with over 20,000 employees working at the airport, 6,556 of them US Airways employees. There are six main terminals as part of PHL's infrastructure. The $100 million Terminal “F” (with three individual Concourses 1,2 & 3), used specifically for commuter aircraft operations and officially opened on 17 June 2001 and is home almost exclusively to US Airways Express, complementing the December 1999 opening of the new $ 221 million and 5,000 ft long commuter runway. Huge capital investment has continued at PHL and in August 1999 ground was broken on the much larger $ 450 million project for a new 13 'wide-body gate' International terminal, now Terminal 'A' West. This was opened in 2003, along with a new control tower (SMVCR) and new US Airways operations control tower. The expansion of US Airways international services at PHL received an enormous boost thanks to this new dedicated terminal which has been jointly designed and financed by US Airways and the City of Philadelphia.

One of PHL's idiosyncrasies was the use of 'people mover' wheeled boarding/arriving "buses for passengers, similar to the system pioneered at Washington Dulles International for many years, and to a lesser extent Atlanta Hartsfield International. They overcome the shortage of terminal gates for aircraft, and transport passengers from the terminal to remote parking stands. In 2003, this unique PHL tradition ended thanks to the opening of the new International Terminal.

It was comparatively late in the aviation history of the US that Philadelphia first entered the field of air transportation when in 1925 the City of Philadelphia first provided 125 acres of land – now part of the north-east corner of PHL - for training pilots of the Pennsylvania National Guard. The following year the city entered an agreement with the Ludington Exhibition Company, whose Luddinton Line (incorporated under the name New York, Philadelphia and Washington AirwayCorporation), was a fore-runner of Eastern Air Transport and then Eastern Air Lines. They operated initially from Philadelphia's Camden airfield from August 1929, before the city's new 'municipal aviation landing ground' opened for their hourly Stinson Trimotor, Consolidated Fleetster and Lockheed Vega 'shuttle' service to Washington. Ship building was the main business that stimulated the economy of the city in the early part of the last century. The US Naval Aircraft Factory was based here after the establishment of the nation's emergency ship-building yards on the banks of the Delaware river during World War One, located at Hog Island. The 1,000 acre site became derelict and in 1930 the city purchased Hog Island for $ 3 million from the Federal Government to provide land for expansion of the city's airport.

However, the Depression prevented further development of an airport during the early 1930's, American Airlines, Eastern, TWA and United serving the city of Philadelphia through 'Central Airport' in nearby Camden, New Jersey. Not until 1937 did work start afresh on development at Hog Island and the new Philadelphia Municipal Airport on the site was officially opened on 20 June 1940. The airlines serving Philadelphia now moved their services wholesale to the new airport from Camden.

A trial air mail service was carried out in PHL by Johnny Millar flying a TWA Kellet KD-1 autogyro in May 1937. What is claimed as the world's first scheduled rotary winged service was inaugurated by Eastern Air Lines, also in Philadelphia, on 6th July 1939 when a Kellet KD-1 autogyro was used to fly air mail from a roof top in down-town PHL to the airport and several other significant local points.

The Douglas DC-3 was 'king' at the time and in its first year of operation the majority of the 40,000 passengers that used Philadelphia Municipal flew on this aircraft. In August 1940 All American Airways (founded in March 1937) started flying the "AM1001" air mail service from Philadelphia, routing via Wilmington, Harrisburgh, Williamsport and Altoona, to Pittsburgh. Stinson SR-10's were used to fly this route and nine aircraft were soon serving 87 communities throughout the north-east US.

Partly because of the sensitive nature of the naval establishments close to the airport, security decreed that the airport be closed to commercial services in 1943. Commercial air services were quickly restored though on 26 June 1945 and a $ 3.5 million investment in new terminals and infrastructure. On 23rd November 1945 Philadelphia Municipal became Philadelphia International Airport when American Overseas Airlines, Inc. (formerly American Export Airlines) commenced trans-Atlantic services from Philadelphia using Douglas C-54 Skymasters to European destinations that included Scandinavia, The Netherlands, Prestwick (Scotland) and Hurn (Bournemouth). AOA also operated from Chicago, Washington and New York.

In 1949 All American Airways started passenger services from Philadelphia and soon built up a network of scheduled DC-3 passenger services from PHL serving Washington D.C., Baltimore, New York, Newark, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Cincinnati. In 1953 All American adopted the more geographically identifiable name of Allegheny Airlines. Allegheny became US Air in October 1979 and in turn US Airways in 1997. US Airways strong links with PHL can therefore be traced back through antecedents for over sixty years.

A further major investment was started at PHL in 1950 with the construction of a new $ 15 million terminal building, completed and opened on 15 December 1953. Cargo services at PHL were established, largely thanks to The Flying Tiger Line and the award of scheduled, all-freight certificates to the airline in 1949. Overnight, trans-continental DC-6A freight flights started in 1955, the same years that PHL's first dedicated 45,000 square foot cargo terminal was opened. Much of the 616,700 tons of cargo handled in 2000 at PHL, and not dealt with by US Airways, is handled by United Parcel Service (UPS), which opened a major regional distribution facility south of runway 9R/27L in 1988 - an adjacent second and further enlarged general cargo facility was opened in 1990. In 1958 runway 9L/27R, PHL's all-weather, instrument runway, was extended to 9,500 ft (2,896 m) its current length.

USAir started to develop a hub operation at PHL in the early 1980's, substituting its many point-to-point services. Allegheny Commuter had pioneered the use of 'third-level' commuter services in the north-east US. These impacted on PHL, none more than in November 1987 when USAir acquired Piedmont Airlines and their commuter subsidiary Jetstream International Airlines which began to operate services as an 'Allegheny Commuter' at PHL in April 1988. Soon after Jetstream became a wholly owned subsidiary of the USAir Group and then operated as USAir Express, helping consolidate the rapid growth of PHL as a hub operation for USAir.

In 1985 a new direct rail link (SEPTA) was opened linking PHL directly with downtown Philadelphia. Continued capital investment at PHL during the 1980's and in to the '90's included a $ 695 million scheme to construct a new $ 100 million international terminal (the original Terminal A) that was completed in 1991 and the renovation of terminals B,C,D and E. Terminals B and C were consolidated, the refurbished and re-opened building being opened in June 1998. The new international terminal's opening complements the increasing number of international services operated from PHL, mainly by US Airways. 20 non-stop flights are now flown to Caribbean and central American destinations. This growth, which started with services to just the Cayman Islands, San Juan, Nassau and Bermuda, has been a significant factor at PHL - US Airways services, principally from PHL, now rivals American Airlines, the traditional airline serving this region.

To use a variation on a famous quote, the US Airways/PHL relationship can be summarised, "If US Airways sneezes then PHL catches a cold". With over 75 % of the flights at PHL US Airways and its US Airways Express operators, are the airport's 'tour de force'. It's 375 daily departures are split 195 to 180 between mainline US Airways and US Airways Express - these flights offer more than 35,000 seats each business day, flying to 106 different destinations. In 2000, US Airways boarded 8.100 million passengers at PHL; this figure has subsequently dipped and risen again in 2003 to just under 8 million. They deplane a similar number, using 38 of the jet gates in Terminals A,B,C and D and now most of the 38 gates of the dedicated US Airways Express Terminal F since its June 2001 opening.

Terminal 'F' can accommodate simultaneously 24 of US Airways Express Canadair RJ's and 14 of their DHC-8 Dash 8 aircraft. Terminal F was built as a public/private partnership between US Airways and the City of Philadelphia, completed in less than two years and providing 38 gates.

US Airways Express currently handles around 2 million passengers at PHL, utilizing their 180 daily departures. Eight of the US Airways Express franchised and subsidiary airlines serve 43 destinations direct from PHL, using Canadair RJ's, Embraer RJ-145's, Saab 340's, DHC-8's, Dornier 328's, and most recently the new Embraer 170's of Mid West Airways - the few Beechcraft 1900D's have now been retired. The US Airways Express airlines represented at PHL are Midwest Airlines, Allegheny, Chautauqua, Mesa, Mid Atlantic, Piedmont, PSA and Shuttle America. Of the 5,500 US Airways employees at PHL, ten percent of them are representing US Airways Express.

The arrival of Mid Atlantic Airways new Embraer 170's has been another coupe for PHL. US Airways Express are one of the three launch customers for the type and first in North America. The Pittsburgh-based, 100 % US Airways owned new airline, is part of US Airways plan to regain lost territory and markets with an increasing focus on smaller regional jet operations. The first Embraer 170 operation at PHL took place on 4th April 2004 with non-stop services with the 72-seat twin-jet to both Kansas City and to Syracuse. From 2nd May further 170 services were added to Buffalo, Nashville and Pittsburgh. These flights are currently operating from 'main-line' gates on Concourse 'D'.

Although PHL only ranks third behind US Airways two other hubs at Pittsburgh and Charlotte, its 375 daily departures compare to about 450 each at each of the other two hubs. However, PHL is US Airways primary international gateway with its non-stop daily trans-Atlantic service to nine different European cities, plus three seasonal ones. These are flown predominantly by the airline's Airbus A.330-300 since 2000, now largely replacing the Boeing 767-200ER's, former Piedmont Airlines aircraft. Commencement of daily service by US Airways from PHL to Barbados in November 2001 was the twelfth Caribbean destination to be served by the airline. This was just seasonal (winter) and at weekends but has now developed to year-round for the majority of destinations.

US Airways Shuttle does not operate from PHL. Metrojet, their low-fare unit, was abandoned in 2002 and the US Airways Shuttle only serves, the three big north-east cities of New York (La Guardia), Ronald Reagan Washington National and Boston Logan Int.

Consolidating US Airways presence at PHL, the airline opened a new 100,000 square ft. maintenance hangar in November 2000. This has sufficient capacity to house one A330 alongside a Boeing 767, or three smaller types such as Boeing 737 or A320 family aircraft alongside each other.

Unlike several congested north-east US international airport's, PHL does not suffer from any significant congestion at peak periods. The fore-sight in building and opening the new commuter runway has relieved pressure on the other longer runways for large jet traffic. Taxi-ways, aprons and terminal access for aircraft all work well, enhancing the flow of traffic. However, there can be some air traffic issues, for whilst PHL isn't slot controlled, its sandwiched in air traffic terms between New York and Washington DC airspace. PHL airport is described as "Safe, Clean, Friendly and Efficient". The city authorities have given the airport directors freedom to develop the international airport, the main point of access for visitors to Philadelphia. The freedom's of this are now being increasingly recognised by the growing status and top-flight reputation of PHL amongst US domestic and international air travellers. "Philadelphia Freedom" lives on in the 21st century at PHL.

From page 72 of FLUG REVUE 10/2004

Last updated 13 September 2004

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