Piedmont has long seemed like an airline living on borrowed time. For years it was the airline flying the smallest and least desirable fleets. On more than one occasion, it seemed like its time was up, but it never was. And once again, the airline has avoided death as it has received an allotment of Embraer 175s from its parent, American. The mighty Pacemaker lives on… well, sort of.
Piergiuliano Chesi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In truth, this is not the airline that is tied to the Route of the Pacemakers, but saying that gave me the opportunity to put up that sexy B737-200 photo anyway. That Piedmont was a local service carrier that was bought by USAir in 1987. The only remnant of that airline today is a rather big one… American’s Charlotte hub, which it picked up through the US Airways merger.
As it was wont to do, USAir liked to keep its conquests’ intellectual property alive by repurposing the names. In the mid-1990s, Jetstream was renamed PSA to keep that airline’s name in use. The same thing happened to Suburban, turning into Allegheny. And Salisbury (MD)-based Henson was renamed Piedmont.
JetPix (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2), via Wikimedia Commons
Henson was started as a regional feeder out of Hagerstown (MD) back in the 1960s by the man, the myth, the legend… Dick Henson. It was way back then that it even started flying as Allegheny Commuter for Allegheny Airlines, eventually moving the whole thing to Salisbury. In 1983, Piedmont bought Henson to get the airline’s feed for itself, but a few years later, the whole thing fell back into the Allegheny family, now under the USAir name.
Under USAir, later US Airways, Piedmont became a turboprop specialist. By 1997, it was only flying Dash 8 aircraft ranging from the 37-seat -100 up to the 50-seat -300 variant. With all the uncertainty after 9/11, Piedmont could have been killed off, but instead it got stronger. Allegheny and its northeast US-flying was merged into Piedmont.
Piedmont’s operations peaked in 2005 when it was doing significant flying in Philly, Charlotte, LaGuardia, and Pittsburgh. But then it started to fall.
Piedmont Annual Departures by Hub
Data via Cirium
America West took over US Airways in 2005, and the new US Airways shuttered its Pittsburgh hub. Unprofitable regional flying was cut back throughout the network. By 2013, Piedmont was largely focused on Philly and Charlotte with a minor operation at Washington/National, but it continued to shrink.
US Airways took over American at the end of 2013, and that coincided with the Dash 8s starting to hit the end of their lives. Piedmont was shrinking, and it had no real future unless American wanted it to survive.
It got lucky. American decided that it wanted Envoy — the former American Eagle — to focus on larger regional jets, so Piedmont became the designated 50-seat jet operator. It first flew an ERJ-145 in scheduled service in 2016. And on July 14, 2018 the transition was complete when it operated its last turboprop flight with a run from its primary Charlotte hub up to its Salisbury home.
The ERJs were good for the airline, and the fleet grew quickly as airplanes were moved over from Envoy. But now, it has reached another inflection point. Post-pandemic, many of the airplanes were stored, seemingly for good. Today, Piedmont has 69 ERJ-145s flying, well below its high point. And these are not young airplanes. The youngest in the fleet will turn 20 next month.
The airline’s mix of flying began to change in 2020 when Charlotte passed Philly as the airline’s largest hub. That gulf has only widened. In 2024, it was 60 percent larger in Charlotte than Philly. All of those newer, fancier 65-76 seat aircraft with extra legroom and first class onboard had to be deployed somewhere. And Charlotte was the place with the most small market routes where the competitive edge didn’t matter as much.
But with pilots making a lot more money at regionals these days and revenue lagging without premium cabins, the days of these 50-seaters are numbered throughout the US industry. Piedmont could have shrunk into oblivion, but it has been thrown a lifeline once again.
Starting in 2028, Piedmont will start operating its first 76-seater, an Embraer 175. After three years, it will be fully built out with 45 of the airplanes. It will continue to fly the ERJ-145s well into the 2030s, but eventually those will be gone completely.
Though we don’t know where these airplanes will be flying since it’s three years away, it will complement the wholly-owned Envoy fleet of Embraer 175s within American as well as the CRJ-700/900s of PSA. American clearly likes having multiple wholly-owned operators so it can try to play them off each other and gain more leverage with labor. It also likes to have solid operators like Piedmont in the fold. It would certainly seem operationally easy to merge an Envoy and Piedmont, but there’s probably not that much of a reason to bother. Then again, 2028 is a long ways off, so we’ll see if anything changes by the time that first airplane flies.
For now, Piedmont will continue to soldier on, defying the odds to keep flying as it continues to operate bigger and nicer airplanes. By 2040, who knows? Maybe it’ll pick up some A380s on the used market….
The Air Show went live early this week where Brian and I took a deeper look at what the United/JetBlue deal says about both airlines and the others in the industry. Also, watch this space over the weekend. Our next episode will be going up way earlier than normal.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Amazon
Listen on Pocket Casts
_AN0207950.jpg){kind=link}
18 comments on “Piedmont Escapes Death Once Again as American Doles Out Embraer 175s”
I have an oddball story about Piedmont, but it has nothing to do with flying. Back in the 1980’s there was an extremely popular morning radio show in NYC called “The Morning Zoo” on WHTZ FM& one of the humorous bits they ran was about a regular caller known as “Mr. Stress. This character would rant, rave & would scream “answer me!”
In one of these bits, Mr. Stress took a job as an air traffic controller at JFK & when People’s #16 had their turn on the runway for landing he went off saying “PIEDMONT!… I have some real airlines to deal with here… so you just stay up there.” After calming down for a moment, he said “I think I’m going to really like this job.”
“American clearly likes having multiple wholly-owned operators so it can try to play them off each other and gain more leverage with labor. ”
Certainly the goal of AA but the actual labor rates would suggest the regional labor unions have done a much better job playing the patterned bargaining game against AA.
Long before Cranky became, I was flying those 37-2’s. Living in Seattle with a host of movie theatre customers in the Carolinas, I often flew Piedmont, non-stop (as we used to say instead of incorrect “direct”). At that time it was a premium airline, with fantastic food service in first class.
Later I would fly up and down the east coast with Eastern. Either non-stop to Atlanta (A300 or L1011, and changing to their DC-9’s. Or if I was having meetings in mid-Atlantic or New England, I would fly their 727’s from Seattle to Kansa City. About half a dozen flights from the west coast would land there about the same time, meeting a half dozen coming in from the east coast. All the flights in both directions left in about 40 minutes. Snacks both ways, to-from east coast and full meals to-from west coast.
I was an early Executive Travel member. Whenever we got to a gate, we would hand in our boarding pass. Right before departure, if there was an opening in FC, the agent would call our names and be upgraded. That was our only benny at the time. When CO bought into it, they had us figure out how many miles with EA, and entered us in One Pass. It followed through after merger with UA. And now I am 12 years retired with lifetime Star Alliance Gold.
And we were true road warriors. Miles earned came the old-fashioned way: Flying!
Jet Piedmont!
This analysis overlooks Piedmont’s significant ground handling operation. In many of AA’s cities, Piedmont handles all of AA’s ground operations (mainline and regional). At my home airport (SBP) Piedmont handles all 4 AA departures (3 PHX 2 mainline and 1 regional) and 4 Alaska departures (1 mainline, 3 regional). At the PHX hub, ALL regional flights (Envoy and Skywest) are handled by Piedmont staff (gate and ramp) and handling equipment. It’s reach and breadth, operationally and geographically, extends beyond EMB145 flying. See chart on this page: https://piedmont-airlines.com/about/routes-locations/
PS: I do not work for them!
Looking at the chart I notice SYR is the lone Piedmont Customer service/ground handling location in upstate NY, and I wonder if that stems from OG Piedmonts purchase/merger of Empire Airlines which had it’s hub in SYR
Wow! I did not know how broad Piedmont’s ground operation was/is. Thanks for sharing.
Escaping Death- Something Silver Airlines knows nothing about…
Excited for the write-up on 3M and their obituary in Airlines We Lost 2025.
I have (mostly) fond memories of the “real” Piedmont. Never got to fly on a sexy -200 with them, but I flew -300s and -400s out of SFO to visit relatives in Florida, usually connecting at DAY. They used to have a deal with Lucky grocery stores where you’d save up receipts and send them in for a discount voucher.
I wish they’d let these names die with dignity. But I understand how intellectual property laws work. *sigh*
I fondly remember flying Piedmont during the latter part of it’s airline history -> IAH-BDL in early 1985. Fairly empty737-200, I sat in coach toward the back. Not only was I served a nice meal, I was also offered my first hot towel. And more than once, as we stopped at BWI along the way. It was a great flight. And, a few months later, Piedmont was gone….merged into USAir.
Piedmont was still going strong and independent in 1985. In fact, it bought Empire in late 1985. It didn’t merge into US Air until a couple years later.
Among the legacy carriers (which did not include Southwest), US Air and Piedmont were the two surprises in performance in the early days, and of those two, Piedmont was even stronger (relatively) than US Air.
They were both former Local Service Carriers (see Wikipedia for a definition) and Piedmont was either the smallest or second smallest of these carriers when deregulation occurred. And it did really, really well.
There’s a pilot I used to know who came into the industry in the mid 80s. He targeted Piedmont and Southwest as his carriers. I think he was hired at both and chose Southwest and so lived a charmed existence for his career.
Had he gone to Piedmont instead, OMG. US Air bought Piedmont and PSA around 1987. There then followed something like 5 or 6 years of losses for the combined carrier (US Air). Grinding years of no growth and horrible financial results. Then some years of expansion in the late 1990s, followed by renewed h*ll before and after 9/11. Two bankruptcies after 9/11 within like three years.
At one point, the most junior pilot at US Airways had, after 9/11, something like 18 years seniority. 18 years flying for US Airways and your job is to pull gears on an E-190 (they had 10 of them for some reason).
Think of how momentous for that one pilot was the decision to go with Piedmont or Southwest. On the one side heaven, on the other h*ll.
Now that I think of it. you’re right – it was later in the 1980s. Weird to think of all of the predecessor companies to USAir – and today’s AA – that I have flown with: Piedmont, PSA, Allegheny, America West, the old AA, and TWA. All were better in their day than what has proceeded from them.
Flew on all those as well, but not PSA. Instead, Ozark. Funnily enough, OZ had a few PSA DC-9s, and I did get to fly on an ex-PSA bird. Maybe that counts.
Funny how the airline industry works. My dad flew for DL from 1969 to 2001. He interviewed with 12 airlines in 1969 and only Delta offered him a job. When he retired in 2001, the other 11 airlines were no more. Luck plays such a role.
In 1998 I was working for Sabre on the AMR/Sabre Y2K project. US Airways hadn’t done a lot of work prepping for Y2K, so they decided to outsource reservations and back office IT to Sabre. At the time, US at the time had their main back office IT systems based in the old Piedmont data center in Winston-Salem NC, formerly Piedmont’s headquarters city. I spent a lot of time there working with their IT team to test and certify their systems for Y2K. I also got to work on the cutover to Sabre when AA and US merged in 2013.
“For now, Piedmont will continue to soldier on, defying the odds to keep flying as it continues to operate bigger and nicer airplanes. By 2040, who knows? Maybe it’ll pick up some A380s on the used market….”
Brett, this one really got me. I greatly appreciate your sense of humor. Keep the clever quips coming!
For those who are interested, based on the latest information on American’s website, as of the end of 2024, it had 42 fewer E-175 and CRJ-900 sized aircraft (i.e., 76 seats) than are allowed under its scope clause. And American can grow that number if it adds to its mainline narrowbody fleet.