Word: piedmonte
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...Piedmont's profits keep flying...
...their desperate scramble for passengers on some of the most popular, and competitive, routes. With industry losses worldwide projected at some $2 billion, 1982 has been one of the worst in airline history. Yet not all airlines are finding the skies unfriendly, and not all flights are cheap. Piedmont Airlines, a rapidly growing regional carrier based in Winston-Salem, N.C., has no trouble filling seats on the 317-mile flight from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Atlanta, for instance, even William Howard though the lowest round-trip fare is $148. One reason: no other airline connects those two cities. While...
...Piedmont owes much of its current success to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Before that Piedmont, like other regionals, had been restricted mostly to the role of a "feeder" airline delivering travellers to the large carriers waiting at such major hubs as Atlanta and Chicago to fly them to their final destinations. Says William McGee, Piedmont's vice president for marketing: "We knew we were generating a substantial amount of traffic in our core system and then giving it to somebody else." Since it is generally cheaper to carry passengers on longer flights with fewer stops, the feeders...
...Charlotte, N.C., so that passengers could travel between cities from Miami to Boston and as far west as Denver without time-consuming stops at the congested Atlanta airport. Many small and medium-size cities were good prospects for this revamped system. Says William Howard, Piedmont's president: "We looked for those routes that were underserved, where there was a need for flights." New territory opened up as the big trunk airlines cut small-volume flights to such Midwestern cities as Grand Rapids, Flint, Toledo and Fort Wayne. Last July Piedmont inaugurated its second hub at Dayton. Says Howard: "Those...
...results of this carefully targeted planning, says First Boston Corp. Airline Analyst Michael Derchin, have been "just incredible." From 1977 through 1981 Piedmont's net income rose 335%, from $7.5 million to $32.6 million, and fully diluted earnings per share more than tripled, from $1.23 to $4.12. Along the way the airline has upgraded its fleet with bigger, more modern aircraft. This year, retiring the last of its propeller-driven planes, Piedmont also bought twelve new Boeing 737s, making it the world's largest 1982 purchaser of new aircraft. The airline plans to buy nine more 737s...