...and Close Binghamton (NY) Maintenance Base

Allegheny Airlines announced that it will furlough 20 pilots and close its Binghamton (NY) repair and maintenance base between now and October 1.

The US Airways subsidiary also plans to cut about 60 people in the Philadelphia area, according to the parent. All the changes, which also include reduction in the catering staff and ramp workers, should take place by September 1; the pilots will linger longer.

Further reports say that Allegheny will be returning two leased planes by October, and as many as four more by the end of the year; and that's not expected to be the end of the airline's downsizing.

Richard O'Leary, chairman of the Allegheny Airlines Master Executive Council of the Airline Pilots Association International, said it's just the beginning of the end for the regional nameplate: "They're beginning to do what they said they were going to do," he told reporters, "and that is [to] incrementally dissolve the airline airplane by airplane."

US Airways, for its part, has long said that it plans to get out of the turboprop business, replacing the older designs with regional jets. Allegheny flies 46 Dash-8 turboprops.

Binghamton today employs over three dozen workers.

FMI: www.usairways.com