Dog Wonder
Veteran
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Article - US Airways' local service unlikely to grow
- Thread starter jimcfs
- Start date
YVINTERN
Veteran
Not happening for a while...The Board needs to fire DP...SK...whoever else supports DP...they ALL need to go...and maybe the Board can hire someone from a REAL airline who knows how to TREAT the Employees & Customers right and does not deceive the INVESTORS.
songbirdstew
Senior
- Sep 10, 2003
- 478
- 51
My Prediction from my crystal ball is this (humor me):
Systemwide, F/As now have reciprocal agreements w/ SW and DL. So, all those F/As that used to pay $39 to commute on SW to get to work from PIT-PHL will now ride for free if there is a seat. SW will take a look at their numbers and the fact that they are no longer filling their A/C....even if it was 20-30 F/As per flight....so they will pull their flights PIT-PHL.
As most know, US has downsized most A/C between PIT-PHL to RJs so the commuting employees are having a hel! of a time getting to/from work. With SW gone it would be even harder.
All the PIT employees----I think it's in the thousands w/ pilots, F/As, rampers, Mechs, Tix Agents, etc---wiould not be able to get to PHL to report for work and it will finally collapse on itself.
Actually if you think about it, if SW wanted to shut down our PHL OPS they WOULD pull all the PIT-PHL flights so none of the US employees could get to work.
Just my spin.
Systemwide, F/As now have reciprocal agreements w/ SW and DL. So, all those F/As that used to pay $39 to commute on SW to get to work from PIT-PHL will now ride for free if there is a seat. SW will take a look at their numbers and the fact that they are no longer filling their A/C....even if it was 20-30 F/As per flight....so they will pull their flights PIT-PHL.
As most know, US has downsized most A/C between PIT-PHL to RJs so the commuting employees are having a hel! of a time getting to/from work. With SW gone it would be even harder.
All the PIT employees----I think it's in the thousands w/ pilots, F/As, rampers, Mechs, Tix Agents, etc---wiould not be able to get to PHL to report for work and it will finally collapse on itself.
Actually if you think about it, if SW wanted to shut down our PHL OPS they WOULD pull all the PIT-PHL flights so none of the US employees could get to work.
Just my spin.
So as others have also noted, the airline with ticker symbol "LCC" isn't finding Pittsburgh attractive as a supposed "low-cost airline?" The irony is just mind-boggling...
And it appears that service will be cut back even further after Labor Day, with peak total weekday departures dropping to 119 and peak mainline weekday departures dropping to 31. It's interesting that he glosses over the fact that several mainline daily departures are being cut. It wouldn't be surprising to see daily departures drop to below 110 if Air Midwest does indeed get out of the EAS markets from PIT.
Prince of PAWOBs
Veteran
That's true, but now I have more time to sample the cuisine at Wok & Roll.
You can't expect the management in Tempe to do much more than look at numbers on a spreadsheet. Even when we're shorthanded, the folks at PIT, whether it's Mainline or Express, tend to work some serious miracles when the weather is bad or the airspace out on the East coast is congested or the stars aren't aligned. And that's when you look at a station a bit more objectively than just from a cost-per-gate perspective. If customer satisfaction gets you return business as a result, it would seem to be a no-brainer that you send passengers through a station that can provide such service.
You might make less dough (which is debatable) in the short run, but you keep the airline thriving with happy passengers who continue to fly your planes, which is pretty much what I've been yelling about for the last two years.
That is the problem. This management team is concerned about the short run only. Merge today, sell/merge tomorrow, walk away with millions, long-term future be damned.
Prince of PAWOBs
Veteran
This is why the pulldowns in service are dangerous to the sucess of an airline. You can apply game theory to to the situation in a simple form to see why it is a poor idea to mass a majority of your flights in one or two stations.
If most of the pieces of your operation are ramrodded through one city and all hell breaks loose at that station (or, in the case of US, one airspace corridor), the rest of the operation suffers. Strategic placement of flights based on several factors would minimize or mitigate major meltdowns during malevolent meteorological events or massive traffic flow issues. (Love that alliteration, Prince!)
Consider the following:
--Using PIT to concentrate Express flying in the Northeast greatly allieviates congestion along the Atlantic corridor from BOS to DCA. Those stations can be fed from PIT with larger aircraft to maximize passengers and reduce air traffic to BOS, LGA, JFK, EWR, PHL, BWI, IAD and DCA.
--Using PHL for large International flights to Europe again maximizes aircraft use. The Shuttle is key here, because the cities mentioned above can feed PHL directly without clogging up the airspace unnecessarily.
--CLT is the perfect start point for Latin American and Caribbean flying because of geography. Feed it in the same way as PHL, and concentrate the Express flying into CLT by containing it to the Southeast, as GNV or TLH to CLT makes more sense than ELM or SYR to CLT. Again, a savings in ATC nightmares. Further south might be better, but we all saw how the ball was dropped with FLL.
--PHX is already in excellent position to handle a West Coast operation. There is a lot of empty space in between cities, so handling that traffic and concentrating connecting traffic to large East Coast cities for connections makes far more sense than, say, LAS to CMH or BUF.
--LAS is a unique animal. A playground for (mostly) adults in the middle of a desert that attracts LOTS of people. It should be fed with a constant flow of large aircraft from large US stations.
--US needs one more station on the west coast (read: very close to the Pacific) to make it even slightly viable to handle Asian destinations. If fed properly from, say, PHX, it could easily handle moving high yield traffic to the Far East. Perhaps PDX or SEA would be decent choices.
But before any of this sort of thing happens, Tempe must SERIOUSLY evaluate not only the route structure and the cost of doing business at these airports, but also how the passengers perceive their treatment on US flights and how the company works with its work groups to create a decent flying experience.
And outfoxing the horrendous ATC situation in the Northeast is much better than sitting on your hands waiting for change that may never come.
Prince of PAWOBs
Veteran
Well, guys and gals...too late now for the implimentation of my great scheme. PSA is going to reduce twenty full-time ramp and gate agents to part-time to save money, claiming that PIT will soon be enjoying yet another reduction in flights. This probably deserves its own thread, so to whomever gets to it first, I'll post what I learn as soon as I get more information.
Prince of PAWOBs
Veteran
You're probably right. I'm still waiting to see the letter the company is sending to the affected employees. Hopefully I can get a copy of one and share it here.
What was heard about yesterday in PIT dealt with the nine lowest seniority gate agents. They were given three choices: 1) Go to the ramp as full-time agents, 2) Go to the ramp as part-time agents, 3) Stay at the gate as part-time agents. The company told them they had 48 hours to decide or they would be separated from their jobs. The IBT says the separation sentence cannot be performed. So, the agents will wait and see what happens next. Ramp should receive letters within the week, and it affects the bottom eleven agents. Of those, the lowest seniority agent is just shy of four years with an Express operation that has been in PIT for 14.5 years.
Chop, chop, chop! I'm guessing the money saved by eliminating most of those agents vacations, personal days, sick days, medical benefits, half of the uniform allowance and anything else that can be squeezed will go to fund the revolving doors in CLT and PHL as they hire "1000 more workers". It's interesting that we haven't heard anything about management at the PIT station getting downgraded or downsized. There are several individuals in the administration department alone that could save the full time positions if their jobs were eliminated, considering how little those particular employees accomplish versus their salaries. For that matter, the Gang of Four (or Five) that work in the PIT mezzanine offices contribute even less and get far more than the administration personnel. Tempe's corporate culture sure has come to roost quite easily at PSA.
AstroLounge
Veteran
- Oct 10, 2005
- 1,491
- 213
What amazes me is even though a decision was made to deHub and then unFocus at PIT, why have they not increased frequency from PIT to LAS and PHX which are viable Western hubs. It is not like Western Pennsylvania has lost their entire population. People still want a more convenient, direct routing to The West (LAX/SAN/SFO/SEA etc.) and forcing them to connect thru PHL and CLT is silly.
Why take on more passengers at money-losing LCC prices when Southwest will do it for them profitably?
Jimmy Neutron
Veteran
- Dec 2, 2005
- 566
- 99
http://www.nbc10.com/news/13862942/detail.html
I know what we can do here....let's cut more and more service from the northeast and send even more soon to be ex-customers to PHL to connect...or would it be mis-connect
Oh and the last section of the article says it all.......
:down:
I know what we can do here....let's cut more and more service from the northeast and send even more soon to be ex-customers to PHL to connect...or would it be mis-connect
Oh and the last section of the article says it all.......
:down:
