In the panic immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, every plane in America was grounded. “Pittsburgh took a huge hit.” said Darryl Jenkins, chairman and executive director of the American Aviation Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank for commercial aviation. There’s currently no service to San Diego, a seasonal flight to San Francisco, and two flights a week to Los Angeles. In 2019, before the pandemic, there were about 65 nonstop destinations from Pittsburgh, a number of them seasonal. These days, the airport doesn’t come close to such numbers. There were five flights a day each to Los Angeles and San Francisco, four to Seattle, and three to San Diego.Īnd while there weren’t any to Squirrel Hill, there were six a day to Harrisburg, seven to State College, and five to Huntington, West Virginia. There were nonstops to three European destinations - Paris, London and Frankfurt, Germany. In August 2001, it averaged 633 daily flights. “There was not a household in our community that wasn’t affected by the US Airways bankruptcies and the reduction from 12,500 employees down to what they have now or even back in 2005,” said Kent George, former executive director of the county airport authority.īefore 9/11, Pittsburgh International was US Airways’ largest hub. It altered the very fabric of the region. Transportation Security Administration - to screen travelers. People walk through the ticketing area at the Pittsburgh International Airport.įor the airport, the impact of 9/11 extended far beyond the measures put in place after the attacks and the creation of a new national force - the U.S.
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