Pittsburgh International Airport has filed a lawsuit against OneJet (Pittsburgh International) demanding the return of at least USD763,000, Law360 has reported. The airline failed to launch or terminated eight out of 10 routes for which it had received USD3 million support from the airport as well as state and local authorities in 2017.
The support package to the airline included a USD1 million grant, as well as a USD1.5 million loan from the county authorities and a further USD500,000 loan from the state government. In return, OneJet promised to base aircraft out of Pittsburgh and launch 10 routes out of the airport.
However, these plans have since been significantly reduced.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, the carrier currently serves only two routes out of Pittsburgh: to Hartford Bradley and Indianapolis International. Earlier this year, it terminated operations to Albany, NY, Kansas City International, Louisville International, Milwaukee General Mitchell, and West Palm Beach International. Already in late 2017, it also ended the service to Nashville International.
OneJet said earlier this year that it would resume the service to Nashville and launch a new route to Memphis International shortly, although these plans have not materialised as yet. The service to Memphis is now scheduled to launch in October, a OneJet spokesperson told Tribune-Review.
According to the Post-Gazette, OneJet is also late with payments for passenger facility fees and other airport charges and did not pay the security deposit.
OneJet currently uses two Do328-300s chartered from Ultimate Jetcharters (Akron Regional) on both Pittsburgh routes and its Albany-Buffalo Niagara International-Raleigh/Durham service.
Other airlines which received financial incentives from Pittsburgh airport to launch services are WOW air for its 5x weekly services to Reykjavik Keflavik (USD800,000 grant) and Condor for its 3x weekly service to Frankfurt International (USD500,000 grant).
