aside from teh fact that philly is one of the most expensive airports to fly in/out of, it is poorlyrun. it needs another runway. i used to fly to school and back and the flight back was always delayed b/c of "congestion" in philadelphia.

Yet another example of how Philadelphia sits around with it's thumb up it's you-know-what while other areas are aggressive and proactive.

portland used to have 1-2 flights to asia. the customs officials were so obnoxious that customers refused to fly there. besides, seattle isn't that far, nor sfo.
from phila, newark's not all that far either. the problem is it's just far enough not to warrant flying.

as for phl, i don't like flying there because what appears (from the outside) to be typical phila work ethic. show up, and your gate may or may not be free. show up at the gate and wait 30 minutes for the right guy to show up to move the jetway. um, thanks folks. glad your union protected you so that everyone on the plane could be inconvenienced. think i'll skip phila next time. (well, not me, my family is there, but think of the business people and tourists.)

I've flown Jetblue. Very fun airline, all one class with extremely friendly service ...cheap flights with leather seats and direct tv at every seat. But they don't go to many places. Their two hubs that I know of are JFK and Long Beach California, which is a tiny airport with no jetways (you actually walk down the runway to the terminal). Having jetblue would be cool, but it would do nothing to increase our international flights. Oh, and speaking of PHL, has anyone seen the two proposals to expand it???

As a low-cost carrier, they will probably skip PHL which charges one of the highest costs per passenger. The other problem is that it takes forever to land and take off at PHL because of congestion. This causes expensive delays and wastes fuel. Perhaps they ought to change Philadelphia Northeast Airport into a low cost carrier hub. Its now run by the same authority that runs PHL so it wouldn't be competition. PNE isn't congested and I'm sure their costs are low. Plus, being up in NE Philly, they ahve the potential of grabing market share from central Jersey and the Lehigh Valley. I think TWA Express used to fly into PNE so it has had commercial traffic in the past.

I've read about it. It seems unbelieveable that they're actually thinking of tearing down most of the current termianl buildings and redesigning the layout of the airport. I can't blame them since the layout is one of the main problems (UPS terminal in the way of runway expansion, buildings too far spread and not well connected, runway space tight, etc.). However, it will be expensive, especially considering that Terminal F is brand new (and it is proposed to be torn down), Terminal B/C is newly renovated, and a new addition has been built onto Terminal D (thankfully Terminal A - the partially new International Terminal- will be spared). It is as if once the current renovations are done they'll have to tear things down again. Then again, this is the same airport authority that recently built a new but too-short commuter plane runway that was designed with propellar planes in mind - apparently not being cognizant of the fact that regional jets are replacing propellar planes in droves. Perhaps what they should have done is abandoned the current airport and built a new one at a different, less congested, site. However, now that they've invested heavily in building the new international terminal, it would be taking a few steps backwards to go forward.

That's the problem. The airlines seem to believe that people in Philadelphia will be content with having to drive, take a shuttle, or take a 2-hou long SEPTA/NJT ride up to Newark just to wait in line again there and get a flight. I think the success of US Airways' European services has proven them wrong. However, it has gotten to the point where US Airways so heavily dominates Eruopean travel from PHL that foreign carriers have stepped out of PHL (KLM and Swissair gone plus Lufthansa and Air France downgrading services). Also, PHL is a US Airways' hub which other airlines try to avoid. Combine that with US Airways' lack of presence in Asia and scanty presence in Latin America and you get the current situation where there's no non-stop flights to Asia or to Latin America outsie of the vacation areas in the Carribean. Hopefully when US Airways becomes part of the Star Alliance, some of its new stronger airline parters (United, Lufthansa, ANA) may do more with PHL.

From today's Business Journal:

The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce announced its new business attraction slogan Tuesday. “Select Greater Philadelphia: The Place to Prosper” will be used in a $16 million, four-year branding effort designed to bring businesses to the region.

The marketing effort is the first regional effort of its kind in Philadelphia. It builds on the work undertaken by real estate interests, led by Peco Energy Co., to provide centralized regional information to corporate relocation specialists and other executives. The Web site from that previous effort, www.positivelyphiladelphia.com, has been absorbed into the new www.selectgreaterphiladelphia.com Web site.

“There are few regions that can boast the premium package that we have to offer,” said chamber President and CEO Mark Schweiker, who announced the slogan at the group’s 203rd annual meeting.

He said the region benefits from an experienced and skilled work force, world-class medical schools and universities, and more software engineers than Redmond, Wash., hometown to Microsoft Corp.

Schweiker said the marketing effort, which is modeled after efforts undertaken in other parts of the country including Charlotte, N.C., would firmly re-establish the region to outsiders as a place to do business.

“We have numerous national treasures here. All we have to do is get the word out,” said Schweiker, who was Pennsylvania’s governor prior to taking the chamber post early this year.

The campaign will be orchestrated by Select Greater Philadelphia, a nonprofit group run primarily with private funding out of the chamber’s offices. Organizers of the effort maintain that the business community “will play a leading role in transforming Greater Philadelphia into a 21st century business growth center by focusing on high-impact initiatives that lead to high-wage jobs, new business opportunities, and wealth creation,” according to a written statement.

The new group, which is still seeking donations to fund its campaign, plans to court individual companies and act as a liaison between relocation specialists and economic development entities. The group defines Greater Philadelphia as Southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Northern Delaware.

__________________
* Name: Jennifer Kronstain
* Status on PhillyBlog.com: Co-Founder
* Job: Principal / Founder, KMG Worldwide Public Relations (http://www.kronstainmediagroup.com)
* Notes on PB: http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/blog.php?u=7

An excellent idea to promote the region. However, advertising is only part of the battle. Now steps need to be taken to make this region actually able to compete in terms of the cost of doing business. Maybe we'll never be as cheap as Georgia or Texas in terms of taxes, but we need to be on a level playing field with places like Chicago, Virginia, and Maryland.

bingo, thanks mb. philly is running it airport like the city. don't get me started on PGW.
they've really got us by the grape nuts.
A lot of htis may have to do with the contracts philly signed with US Air giving them the pick of the litter on gates, even if they don't use them. herehere!

Hopefully they'll have the sense to lease them (gates at the PHL International Terminal) out seeing as they're not likely to use them. Back when US Air was making the case for the Int. terminal they were proposing flights from PHL to Milan, Athens, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo on top of the ones they have now. Time has proven them wrong as they failed to obtain slots at the Milan airport (went to Delta instead for ATL-Milan), Tel Aviv has declined as a travel destination, and its pilots' union forced them to drop out of negotiations for rights to fly to Japan (I don't know how they could have done Tokyo anyway seeing as they have no aircraft that can go that far from here). Don't know about Athens but I imagine that Greece is too close for comfort to the Middle East for most travelers and thus that plan was probably quietly nixed as well.
On the bright side, US Air is to join the Star Alliance next year (world's largest airline alliance) and, if history proves a guide, more foreign carriers will be showing up at PHL to take advantage of US Air's distribution network. Already, US Air's CEO just recently boasted that he expects US Air to serve 20 European destinations from PHL (he probably means by code-share with one of their partners) in the near future. That's up from 10 today. Rumor has it that Glasgow and, probably, Stockholm are sure bets by next year and Milan and Vienna are being considered. Of course I'd be much happier if there were more definitive plans to bring in some flights to Asia and Latin America as these are two regions totally underserved from PHL (in the case of Asia - not served at all). By having service to Europe but none to the other continents, PHL is like a one-armed, no-legged, international airport.