I think it's telling that two other airlines operated a network that was very similar to USAirways' network. Both airlines collapsed. If you look at a route map of Capital Airlines in the late 1950s, or Eastern Airlines in the late 1970s, you will see strong similarities to USAirways' current network. Like USAirways, Capital was headquartered in Washington, DC, and had a strong presence in Pittsburgh, but served no cities west of Minneapolis. After several years of heavy losses, Capital was forced into a last ditch merger with United in 1961, to stave off financial collapse. Eastern Airlines also had a very similar pattern to USAirways. PHL and CLT were originally Eastern hubs, and the USAirways shuttle was purchased from Eastern. One other interesting common bond between Capital, Eastern, and USAirways is that all three airlines purchased large numbers of foreign built aircraft shortly before running into their financial problems. Capital almost completely re-equipped with Vickers Viscounts in the mid 1950s. The Viscount was a huge success for Capital for several years, but Capital's collapse was accelerated by competition from other airlines' 707s and DC-8s in 1959-1960; Capital's heavy Viscount commitment meant that Capital was unable to order pure jets in time to remain competitive. In the late 1970s, Eastern Airlines purchased A300s. Eastern planned to use A300s to replace 727-100s on a two for one basis; Eastern hoped to save money through lower fuel costs from the much more efficient A300s. Unfortunately, fuel prices plummeted shortly after Eastern took delivery of their A300s, leaving Eastern stuck with high payments for new aircraft that would not be able to deliver their anticipated fuel savings. USAirways' decision to buy A320s is not the main reason they are in so much trouble, but I think they would have been better off doing what Northwest has done - extending the life of their DC-9s, rather than going into debt for a fleet of new narrowbodies. Comments, anyone? Joe Wolf