It’s the evergreen question for the Allegheny County Airport Authority:
If there’s such demand for certain flights out of Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), why do taxpayers have to subsidize those flights?
The Airport Authority announced on Sept. 13 that already heavily taxpayer-subsidized British Airways (BA) would receive yet more taxpayer subsidies to, seasonally, expand its Pittsburgh-to-London flights to seven days per week.
The same authority that gave BA a $3 million subsidy to restore its Pittsburgh route in 2019 now is being paid an additional quarter-million dollars to, beginning March 31, 2025, fly a seasonal daily flight through the end of October 2025.
Per the P-G’s BA subsidy history rundown:
“British Airways initiated the [PIT to Heathrow Airport] flight in April 2019 backed by $3 million in subsidies to be paid over two years. After a successful start, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, forcing the airline to suspend the service on March 15, 2020, in part because of travel restrictions imposed between Europe and the U.S. to try to stop the spread of the virus.
“It didn’t resume until June 3, 2022, after a 27-month hiatus.
“The authority paid another $500,000 in subsidies to get two more days of flights for the summer season last year. At the time, it estimated that the expansion would generate another $12.3 million in economic impact for the region.
“Authority spokesman Bob Kerlik said the authority will pay another $250,000 to get the seventh day of flights through a travel and tourism grant awarded by the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
“He estimated the economic impact of the additional day at $6.2 million and the overall impact of the British Airways service at $75 million.”
Let’s put this into perspective: Subsidy after subsidy after subsidy for, as the Allegheny Institute long ago concluded, was for dubiously calculated “economic impacts.”
But, again, if these flights are doing so doggone well – and, concomitantly, British Airways is supposedly carrying oodles and boodles more in air cargo – why are taxpayers continually having their pockets picked to underwrite it all?
The Airport Authority also says about 1,000 more passengers took the London flight from Pittsburgh in July than in the same month in 2023 — 10,452 versus 9,491.
Do note the phrase “from Pittsburgh.”
Added Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis, in a written statement:
“This investment to increase service demonstrates the continued popularity international travel has from our market. We expect daily service next summer will further grow demand and the economic impact this route has on our region.”
Now note the phrase “from our market.”
Well, excuse us… Raised hand in the back here… Yes, here — we have a question:
Where are the numbers regarding foreign travelers that are taking these BA flights from Europe and to Pittsburgh? Wasn’t that one of the major premises of the “economic impact study,” that such public subsidies would bolster, boost or otherwise explode Pittsburgh’s foreign tourist trade?
Cheerio? Or crickets? Let’s see those numbers. That they’ve never been released suggests to us, as Allegheny Institute President-emeritus Jake Haulk has repeatedly stressed, that such taxpayer subsidies are exporting the “economic impact” abroad.
Ah, what a tangled web the Airport Authority continues to weave when at first, by omission, it continues to deceive.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitue.org).
