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File today’s news in the “sure bet” file.  Big bet it was. The thing is… all those IRR NPV calculations on the cost-benefit of allthose subsidies?  Just a tad off in their assumptions I bet.  Folks have begun to forget the late 1990’s when support of USAir(ways) and airport based economic development was the key economic strategy for the region and remained so for much of that decade. Maybe we should file it all under “industry targeting”.  My inner Libertarian might superficially point out a correlation between the escalation of local subsidies and the airline’s local demise.  The simpler truth may just be that the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

News references to USAirways employment in the Pittsburgh region

1981: “more than 4,500“
1987: “more than 7,000“
1989: “9,600“
1990: “11,500“
1991:  11,900
1992: “about 14,000” (I think that refers to the state)
1994: 12,000
1995: 11,382
1996: 11,287
1997: 11,739
1998: 12,000
2000: “11,700″
2001 “12,000 locally“
2002: “about 9,000“
2003: “close to 9,000“

2005: “more than 7,500“
2006: “2,847“
2007 “about 2,700“
2007: “just 2,000″
2008: “about 1,800“

2010: “about 2,020“

Hey, look… we’re trending up.  Let’s extrapolate that.  Better yet, let’s put a quadratic on that.

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