
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 24, 1991                   TAG: 9102240263
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CORAOPOLIS, PA.                                LENGTH: Medium

LEGISLATION OUT TO LOOSEN USAIR'S GRIP ON GATE CONTROL

USAir's grip on airports in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia forces fliers to pay more for tickets and denies them some routes, said a Pennsylvania lawmaker who wants to unseat the carrier from its dominance.

State Sen. Vincent Fumo, a Democrat from Philadelphia, said Friday he introduced a bill that would bar airlines from securing the exclusive control of arrival and departure gates.

USAir is the main carrier serving Roanoke, Va., and the only one that flies large jets.

Fumo's bill would allow competing airlines to use an airport's gates when the dominant carrier has no flights scheduled, Fumo told a news conference in Harrisburg.

USAir spokesman David Shipley told The Pittsburgh Press that Fumo's plan was unrealistic. The airline needs control of gates to accommodate schedule changes and delays, he said.

USAir, a division of Arlington, Va.-based USAir Group Inc., in 1987 served 83 percent of the passengers at Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, up from 44 percent in 1977, Fumo said.

The airline leases 36 of 54 gates at Pittsburgh's airport and will lease 50 of 75 gates at a new terminal scheduled to open in the mid-1990s, Shipley said.

Terminals in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C., are the airline's three major centers for connecting flights and maintenance.

"Exclusivity agreements for airport gates allow larger airlines to dominate a major hub by purchasing the rights to all of the available gates, thus preventing smaller air carriers from entering the market," Fumo said.

"This situation cuts against the grain of our anti-monopoly system of free enterprise," Fumo said.

Shipley responded: "If we didn't have exclusive rights to gates, how could we run a hub? To schedule an airline . . . we have to have assurances that a gate is available when we need it."

by CNB