FF with Something Nice to Say About US

[nycbusdriver]

Off topic, but that last statement is more true than one would imagine. For instance, a flight attendant on reserve, but on 24-hour call, may be sitting at home watching tv and eating bon-bons, but to the FAA that counts as being "on duty"; therefore, the f/a may not sit reserve or fly (or a combo of the two) for more than 6 calendar days in a row without a 24-hour duty-free break. A flight attendant on an extra long (more than 24-hour) layover does not count as "on duty"; even though the flight attendant is away from their base, must answer the phone if crew scheduling calls, is subject to reassignment at any time, and can be disciplined for inappropriate behavior that might bring ill repute upon the airline.

Here pilots on reserve must also have one day out of seven as a day off, even if their phone doesn't even ring once during that six days of waiting.

But on layovers, we are off duty and under no obligation to answer the phone. We can be disciplined for bad behavior on layovers, though.

 

[SparrowHawk]

Back to the original post for a moment.

I've always had a sort of Love/Hate opinion of US Airways. Loved the people that took care of me and hated (to strong a word) those that made policy and in general treated the front line workers like dog crap IMO. Like the decision to use SHARES over SABRE as exhibit A, proving IMO that at no time during the decision making process did the customer & employee experience factor into the decision.

Now for the love part. I flew an average of 130 segments and 130,000 mile per year for TEN years on US Airways. I missed exactly ONE meeting due to an ice storm in CLT. US Airways even in the dark days was operationally a good airline as the above is a damn impressive track record. Now did I wait for 14 hours one day to get to SAN? Yeah I did! Bottom line is they had one tired puppy teaching the next day but I didn't have to cancel class.

The only reason Customer Service is viewed as poor is that Sr. Management has done a poor job of managing expectations and I have harped and nagged them on this issue since the Cockroaches were formed. I have to say that I think some of the nagging and pestering worked. Some didn't, partly due to economic reality.

One of the reasons I never left (except for the 60 day hissy fit I had and flew Midwest) US Airways as with me they had a solid track record of operational performance. In Flight service was IMO the best I'd experienced of all of the Airlines I flew. I say thaat excluding the few bad apples every airline has as I did have about 5 "incidents" of what I would call unacceptable service which when you consider the amount of flights that's a pretty impressive number especially since I'm counting in 2 Mesa F/a's.

Airline people in general need to remember perception is reality. If the customer thinks you screwed up then you did. Doesn't matter the saneness or rationality of the Customer as in their mind you're wrong. Fair? Not even a little but such is life.