http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_755583.html
Southwest cuts to pinch employees
By Tom Fontaine, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Local service cuts by Southwest Airlines will affect hundreds of US Airways employees who commute to Philadelphia from their homes in the Pittsburgh region, officials said.
Most of the estimated 500 to 700 commuters fly standby -- being placed in an unsold seat, if there is one -- on one of US Airways' nine daily flights to Philadelphia, said Mark Gentile of Monroeville, vice president of US Airways' Master Executive Council for the Association of Flight Attendants.
When there are more employees than available seats, they turn to Southwest, which offers four daily round-trips to Philadelphia. Commuting US Airways workers can fly standby on Southwest at no cost through a reciprocal airline agreement that allows Southwest employees to fly free on US Airways.
Southwest said last month it will end service between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in January, calling the route unprofitable. That could take at least 100 potential Southwest seats a day out of the market for would-be standby travelers, based on the airline offering about 500 seats a day on its four departing flights from Pittsburgh and the fact that it, on average, sells 79 percent of its seats systemwide.
"Right now, people are looking at this and are basically stunned," said US Airways Capt. Scott Theuer of Cranberry, a union spokesman for the US Airline Pilots Association.
"They don't know how bad it might be, so they're reluctant to make decisions to sell their houses, uproot their families and move. They're going to struggle through for a while and see how (commuting with fewer seats available) works out," Theuer said.
Theuer said some employees are likely to start flying out the night before their scheduled shift or driving to Philadelphia to ensure they arrive in time for their shift, resulting in added expenses.
US Airways employs about 1,500 Pittsburgh-based workers.
Gentile said 15 flight attendants who live in the Pittsburgh region and commute to Philadelphia have applied for transfers to US Airways' base at Washington's Reagan National Airport. Fewer locally based US Airways employees work there, reducing the demand for standy seats, he said.
It appears unlikely that US Airways will add flights to make up for the Southwest cuts. US Airways spokesman Todd Lehmacher said the airline "has no plans to increase service on that (Philadelphia) route at this time. We are always assessing demand, but demand is driven by revenue passengers," not standby ones who fly for free.
The local commuters include pilots, flight attendants, gate agents, ramp workers and others. Many transferred to Philadelphia and other bases while keeping homes in the Pittsburgh region as US Airways reduced its local operations. The Tempe, Ariz.-based airline closed its pilot and flight attendant bases in Pittsburgh altogether in early 2008.
Neither US Airways nor union officials had an exact tally on workers who commute from the Pittsburgh region to Philadelphia.