PHL - Management Deployment

[allstrike]

Move TransAtlantic to Pittsburgh. It's the best airport in the nation in the winter. (in my opinion)

Very few ATC issues.

If you've got to hub people for TA, at least choose an airport that works.

"BIG DITTO"

 

[allstrike]

The same Chris Doan of old NWA fame in the 90's???? WTF?

I thought that guy was out of aviation.

Update on this guy is here.

"IN OTHER WORDS,HE'S LUNCHMEAT FOR THE RAMP"

 

[WCT]

"BIG DITTO"

I agree PIT is a superior airport. The costs are too high!!!! I know this mgmt is bad, but they would have already moved everything out of PHL by now! Tons of $$$$$$ to make out of PHL. 😱

 

[BajaBabe]

Get REAL Philly is not just a problem with the Ramp it is a total organizational nightmare . There is no law and order in any department. There are freak attendants that are allowed to get away with murder and the rest of us walk around in silence no one wants to raise the Curtain. It is not only the Ramp that has to deal with so many problems there is total disrespect and disdain among the ranks........You need a Culture change lets reinvent the wheel Putting your fellow employee first instead of taking your frustration out on a cleaner,agent,catering,etc,etc,etc.Stand up EMPLOYESS it can not get any worse and when it does look yourself in the mirror .If you are not part of the solution you are the problem.

 

[PA18]

Philly at one time was a good airport just like any other, but now due to ever increasing traffic congestion, physical layout of the alleyways, infrastructure under the terminals, ATC problems with it being in the middle of LGA,JFK,BWI,DCA,IAD, dealing with the government of the City of Philadelphia, Sabre to Shares, weather,and yes, bankruptcy and employee problems etc, etc, etc.

One of the biggest contributing factors to the PHL mess is this management's -- and previous managements' -- insistence that every airplane that departs an airport in the northeast must stop in PHL before proceeding to an airport in the south or west.

Just for fun, I looked up the week of Feb. 14-21 (the traditional northeast winter school vacation week) on the Hub. Once again, there are no non-stop flights from BOS to MCO; and every single flight from BOS to PHL, DCA, and CLT is sold out in coach. And I would expect that very few of those passengers have PHL, DCA, or CLT as a final destination.

So once again, seven months in advance, the company is setting itself up for another mid-winter disaster. With every seat on every flight through every hub sold, the first mechanical, the first crew legality issue, and/or the first snowflake and the whole house of cards collapses.

In the meantime, JetBlue, AirTran, Southwest, and others keep adding non-stop flights from the northeast to the south and west. (Like MHT-PHX, which Southwest is advertising during every commercial break in the baseball game telecasts.)

I know, I know... The management types are already bleating in unison, "We don't make any money on flights to Florida."

Then why in the hell do you still sell tickets from the northeast to Florida? And how much less money do you suppose you'd lose if you just put the people and their bags on an airplane in the northeast, and flew them non-stop to their final destination, using only one airplane, one crew, and two ground stations -- as opposed to using two airplanes, two crews, and three ground stations, while burning all the extra fuel getting into and out of PHL, and then misconnecting the passengers and spending more to deliver their lost bags than they paid for their ticket?

And how do they lure those people away from Delta's non-stop flights to Florida, to the inconvenience of a connecting flight through PHL? By charging next to nothing for the ticket. And they wonder why they lose money on Florida flights.

Or perhaps the company just enjoys getting all that free publicity on CNN and in USA Today every February...

 

[Itestwell]

Move TransAtlantic to Pittsburgh. It's the best airport in the nation in the winter. (in my opinion)

Very few ATC issues.

If you've got to hub people for TA, at least choose an airport that works.

Why move TA to PIT? So they can immediately bleed money and we drop the service? If we cant make them work in PHL where they make money, then we should simply drop them. Moving TA to PIT or CLT would waste more time and effort: PIT cannot support even a LGW or a FRA, let alone 19 European cities. Simple, really.

I realize that PHL is a total operational nightmare, but do you really think MGMT would have soooooo many flights there, trying to make them work, everyday, if it was not a serious revenue generator? I doubt it. They would simply move operations to a nicer facility, aka PIT. They would run from PHL, with their tail between their legs, and we would have 500 flights a day in PIT again, overnight. Can anyone think of a reason why this is not happening? 🙄

As I said, if we can't make it work in PHL, shut the TA ops down! Moving them would be dumber than axing them completely.

 

[avion]

you talk to the other airlines and they say the same thing PHL is a total hell hole to work in its located between NYC and DCA atc centers its considered by the pilots as the FAA STEP CHILD.. NYC center says we will get to Philly when we get to you thats a major reason for the atc delays.. come on a one hr flight takes a 4 hr atc delay you can fly overseas in that timeframe the airport itself is a mess inside and out WN is discontinuing some flights out of Philly espcially its PHL LAX service in November tells you that they cant handle it of course they thought you could do a 20 min turn lol its takes 1 hr to turn around those piece of crap RJs. great more VIPS walking around they can join the ones that are there now who walk around and around stunned with big eyes like a deer infront of headlights.. saying to themselves TIMEOUT TIMEOUT BUSY BUSY TIMEOUT TIMEOUT...

 

[Itestwell]

you talk to the other airlines and they say the same thing PHL is a total hell hole to work in its located between NYC and DCA atc centers its considered by the pilots as the FAA STEP CHILD.. NYC center says we will get to Philly when we get to you thats a major reason for the atc delays.. come on a one hr flight takes a 4 hr atc delay you can fly overseas in that timeframe the airport itself is a mess inside and out WN is discontinuing some flights out of Philly espcially its PHL LAX service in November tells you that they cant handle it of course they thought you could do a 20 min turn lol its takes 1 hr to turn around those piece of crap RJs. great more VIPS walking around they can join the ones that are there now who walk around and around stunned with big eyes like a deer infront of headlights.. saying to themselves TIMEOUT TIMEOUT BUSY BUSY TIMEOUT TIMEOUT...

WN is not discontinuing flights because the PHL airport is a mess. They are removing certain long haul flying from their entire system, not just PHL, to focus on higher yielding, shorter haul flying. They will still grow in PHL, just not with long hauls.

In fact, BWI lost transcons as well.....

 

[Hope777]

Bonanno was Kirby and Mule's righthand man. Hope 777, who is this person coming to Phl?

sorry have been away from the computer, Camile Soto is our Regional who is heading your way. I would be surprised to she her last a month. Have you heard anything in PHL?????

 

[muircross]

I think PHL ran better when we(flt svc.) ran it. All these mgrs aren't the answer. Give us back Chiefs!

 

[allstrike]

Well the airport ramp just closed due to thunderstorms,can they direct that.No loading,No fueling,No towing,"its called duck and cover..lol" When the storm is past there will 40 planes on the taxi way,2 up each alley,waiting to go.But wil be delayed further due to a/c in holding patterns as I type coming in to land on fumes.So in the morning when you read all the delay reports,dont blame the workers.By and By the directors coming will never set foot on the ramp,they will see it from the windows,cause they cant get AOA badges,mgmt or not they wait in line like everyone else,Thats the cities job,maybe while there here they can figure out what to do with the multi million dollar tail stand out side the maint hanger on the ground that never got installed,floor wont hold it,airport is built on a swamp.But the room it takes up could be used....lol

 

[lildutchgrl]

Why move TA to PIT? So they can immediately bleed money and we drop the service? If we cant make them work in PHL where they make money, then we should simply drop them. Moving TA to PIT or CLT would waste more time and effort: PIT cannot support even a LGW or a FRA, let alone 19 European cities. Simple, really.

I realize that PHL is a total operational nightmare, but do you really think MGMT would have soooooo many flights there, trying to make them work, everyday, if it was not a serious revenue generator? I doubt it. They would simply move operations to a nicer facility, aka PIT. They would run from PHL, with their tail between their legs, and we would have 500 flights a day in PIT again, overnight. Can anyone think of a reason why this is not happening? 🙄

As I said, if we can't make it work in PHL, shut the TA ops down! Moving them would be dumber than axing them completely.

I agree. Our TA traffic comes from PHL. If you ever fly TA, then you know how crowded the ticket counters are at that time. Yes, there are some connecting passengers, but we would be shuttling passengers from PHL to PIT or CLT if it were moved. I agree if we can't handle the operation in PHL, then just stop it all together. Or better yet, make sure you have the airplanes to fly there before announcing new destinations. As a side note, whoever moved AMS to a 757 was not thinking of the customers, seeing as the Dutch are the tallest nation at the present time.

 

[zethya]

you talk to the other airlines and they say the same thing PHL is a total hell hole to work in its located between NYC and DCA atc centers its considered by the pilots as the FAA STEP CHILD.. NYC center says we will get to Philly when we get to you thats a major reason for the atc delays.. come on a one hr flight takes a 4 hr atc delay you can fly overseas in that timeframe the airport itself is a mess inside and out WN is discontinuing some flights out of Philly espcially its PHL LAX service in November tells you that they cant handle it of course they thought you could do a 20 min turn lol its takes 1 hr to turn around those piece of crap RJs. great more VIPS walking around they can join the ones that are there now who walk around and around stunned with big eyes like a deer infront of headlights.. saying to themselves TIMEOUT TIMEOUT BUSY BUSY TIMEOUT TIMEOUT...

Reading these replies clearly highlights the reason why PHL and the airline in general have so many personnel problems. It just amazes me to see how an employee (of any substantive value) can have such a miniscule understanding of their company's business and in many cases business in general. For example - and there are MANY, this specific referenced reply contains a wealth of fabrication and erroneous assumptions with no basis whatsoever and yet it is posted as though it where fact. I for one wish the company would implement just half of these absurd suggestions and after 4 loosing quarters, downsize the workforce either through merger or route reduction, including PIT - which incidentally is a major reason for US's original downfall. If I was Parker and/or his management team, I'd look to 80% of the posters in this thread as a strong indicator of what is wrong with this airline. Personally, i actually wish - as long as I had plenty of notice, that Parker would transfer all of US's international and even domestic flying to PIT just for the chance to see the resultant unemployment line. One thing is for certain, Pittsburgh is NOT Philadelphia. If US left PHL, 40+% of the company's Revenue and a significant amount of profit would be quickly picked up by another airline. For those MANY uninitiated, annual PHL Domestic O&D is now 20M, while PIT is 7.3M. International O&D for PHL is slightly more than 4M - PIT is less than 200K (Sources - DOT). PIT's international O&D has changed very little over the past 7 years, which goes to illustrate how much local PIT traffic contributed to its glory years - essentially very, very little.

My observations here are obviously not directed at the few who provide constructive, reasonable suggestions to improve their employer's and consequently their own future. The simple, almost academic, solution for the disgruntled employee is to find work with another (supposidly better) company. The questions, of course then become why the disgruntled employee is still here and what truly is their worth to any company?

 

[Old PSA]

As I follow this thread, I wonder what will be the next move after the Managing Director fail to significantly improve PHL. Will they claim success if they improve operations by say 10%. Or, will the Sandcastle finally realize that PHL requires major changes not more of the same.

Look at the 1st basic problem, too many airplanes in too little space both in the air and on the ground. How do you fix it? Make the air and ground bigger or the flights smaller. We know which one we can do now. Less flights. Instead of all the RJs, substitute mainline with less frequency. Move the RJs west and Airbuses east. Reduce hourly activity by 25%. Talk to the FAA about instituting slots in PHL. Don't schedule more then the airport can handle and also leave a little room for weather problems to catch up.

2nd problem, terminal space. With lower flight operations, more time should be available on the gates. Give F terminal to the city and move WN and DL into it.

3rd problem, transfer time. Stretch connection times to at least 1 hour minimum domestic and 2 hours international. Operate without banks, flight comes in and goes out with realistic ground time. This will make for longer connect times but people and bags will have a better chance of making the connection. If PHL is as good an O/D market, then they should carry the load.

4th problem, personnel. Fix the operation and most of the personnel problems will disappear. Once they are out of crisis management, they might be able to focus on providing a good work environment and remove some of the under-performing staff.

Start overflying PHL. From northeast cities to the south and west. BDL, PVD, BOS, BUF,etc. are big cities and can support nonstop flights. Heck, FL is operating nonstop from PWM to MCO daily with good loads. If PWM can generate that traffic then the other NE cities should be able to also. Good use for the bigger RJs.

Just my thoughts.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Look at the 1st basic problem,

2nd problem

3rd problem

4th problem

Start overflying PHL.

Problems 1-4 would be at least mostly cured by depeaking the hub operation. Doing some overflying of PHL should be a no-brainer.

Jim