PHL Ramp Problems

[MarkMyWords]

Let''s see. If we follow your logic, then why don''t we completely close PHL and move the operations to Mid-America airport? The terminal was built and never (or rarely) used. That would solve a lot of our issues. Bottomline, you put the airplanes where the revenue is.

I understand that the PHL manpower issue is being addressed. the Ramp Manager and the Performance and Planning Manager are both being replaced. Hopefully this will help the situation.

 

[hack73]

The main reason for all of the misconnected luggage in PHL is that the station is grossly understaffed.The word is that the manager in charge of the ramp is going to be replaced today,7/9.They should go a little further and fire the station manager,he is obviously incompetent,but so is most of this companies management when it comes to staffing.As PIT sits empty,planes sit on the tarmac in PHL for hours waiting for a gate.Makes alot of sense?Seigel is in over his head and should resign today!

 

[sdavis29]

that would be nice....
the jist i got from lcl management was most of the manpower numbers are by amount of flts...
15 daily flts to 1 station may be a whole lot different than 15 to another....but odds are you get roughly the sane staffing.

 

[sdavis29]

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On 7/9/2003 11:51:11 AM MarkMyWords wrote:


Let''s see.  If we follow your logic, then why don''t we completely close PHL and move the operations to Mid-America airport?  The terminal was built and never (or rarely) used.  That would solve a lot of our issues.  Bottomline, you put the airplanes where the revenue is. 

I understand that the PHL manpower issue is being addressed.  the Ramp Manager and the Performance and Planning Manager are both being replaced.  Hopefully this will help the situation. 

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mark
2 quick points..
1)putting the airplanes where the $ is makes sense....but seems like they put to many airplanes there..."CROWN JEWEL"

2)i believe the understaffing issue goes higher than the station level...IE manpower....the stations are always asking for people..manpower dictates how many...

 

[MarkMyWords]

Agreed. PHL needs an overhaul. Our worst enemy in PHL is ATC. I will never understand why we can''t get a plane from PHL-BOS or PHL-TPA because there is a thunderstorm in Ohio. I am pretty confident there will be a design change in how we operate in PHL once we get more RJ/SJ''s on the property. I will continue to hope that PHL will become a continuous flow hub versus a banking hub. Similar to what AA did in ORD and DFW.

Regarding manpower.......did you see the COB opening for a Manpower Analyst in CCY? Perhaps there is someone being held accountable for once.

 

[tug_slug]

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On 7/9/2003 12:42:33 PM MarkMyWords wrote:
Regarding manpower.......did you see the COB opening for a Manpower Analyst in CCY?  Perhaps there is someone being held accountable for once. 

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Mark to my understanding its the bean counters that dictate the manpower. Local Management has little or no say when it comes to staffing. At least that''s what were told here at LAX.

Tug

 

[MarkMyWords]

I agree. Hope777 was talking about the same thing. If you have 15 flight is LAX versus 15 flights in ALB, your staffing should be looked at based on local needs, not some bean counters idea of what you need. If I am in LAX and hav to run interline bags, I could be gone my whole shift trying to get to UA and back. In ALB I could practically throw the back to any other airline. Hopefully this is the first of many changes coming. I hear that there has been some office cleaning in the Executive Ranks too.

 

[supercruiser]

PHL will never ever be a successful hub for any airline, no matter how many people you employ there. It will always have ramp congestion problems, gate congestion problems, ATC delay problems, weather delay problems, and probably personnel problems, too. It’s in a congested part of the country, with physical constraints that make it impossible to put in the type of hub terminal you would like to have.

PHL only has 2 runways that are really usable for jets, (even the RJ’s rarely use the newer E/W runway that opened a few years ago) with no room to expand. The band aid approach they are trying to implement is to fly simultaneous approaches in close formation, under the watchful eye of ATC, to make it work. Hopefully there will never be a near miss or mid air as a result of this foolish procedure.

Sure PHL has a lot of O&D traffic (duh, it’s a big city), so put in as many point to point flights as necessary to cover the demand. But as a hub, PHL will ALWAYS be inferior, compared to an existing facility like PIT (300 miles away) that was designed as a hub, with none of the above problems, other than the debt service created, as a result of US Airways insisting on building the facility in the first place. Having the PHL hub as one of the major strategic decisions made by management, is a gross error.

 

[ClueByFour]

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On 7/9/2003 12:42:33 PM MarkMyWords wrote:


Agreed.  PHL needs an overhaul.  Our worst enemy in PHL is ATC.  I will never understand why we can''t get a plane from PHL-BOS or PHL-TPA because there is a thunderstorm in Ohio.  I am pretty confident there will be a design change in how we operate in PHL once we get more RJ/SJ''s on the property.  I will continue to hope that PHL will become a continuous flow hub versus a banking hub.  Similar to what AA did in ORD and DFW.

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One of the more desirable traits in management is to predict trends. The fact that the current PHL debacle took place tells me that Dave and his current crew know zilch about operations. Not good.

Let''s take a look at the rolling hub concept: DFW can do it because the metro has the minimum amount of O&D to pull it off, but the airfield itself is large enough to permit ops in cruddy conditions. ORD can do it because while the airfield capacity shrinks during crappy conditions, the O&D numbers support it.

PHL is on the bottom end of the O&D numbers to do it, and your arrival capacity shrinks to a trickle at the first sign of a cloud.

The solution: run more RJs thru, which take up as much airspace as a bigger plane and carry half the people. Brilliant. You really think that''s going to scale up when things turn around? Remember what PHL was like in 2000? Let''s take the same number of seats, but move them over 1/4 more aircraft. Yeah, that''ll fly.

Unless/until these guys hire or grow some operational clue, the airline is in trouble.

 

[oldiebutgoody]

Marky is obviously a fan of this incompetent management. He defends them at every chance. These "guys" (I only use that word because the moderators would surely delete what I really wanted to call them) are way over their heads, and it is VERY obvious to me that they have NO CONCEPT of how to run an airline. Another HUGE example of idiocy is the new A terminal in PHL. I wonder what U paid for that (it really doesn''t matter, since U''s employees probably got the shaft to pay for this "white elephant" anyway). It''s MILES AWAY from all the other concourses (I guess Dave thought our passengers were getting a little "tubby"), and one of the agents told me that they can''t even board airlplanes while others deplane because of the way the hallway to customs is set up. How stupid! Just more examples of why U is probably doomed! PHL passengers will be fed up soon enough and allow more low cost airlines in, and management STILL won''t have a clue what is wrong with their operation.

 

[PITbull]

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On 7/9/2003 11:51:11 AM MarkMyWords wrote:


Let's see.  If we follow your logic, then why don't we completely close PHL and move the operations to Mid-America airport?  The terminal was built and never (or rarely) used.  That would solve a lot of our issues.  Bottomline, you put the airplanes where the revenue is. 

I understand that the PHL manpower issue is being addressed.  the Ramp Manager and the Performance and Planning Manager are both being replaced.  Hopefully this will help the situation. 

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Marky,

I've been reading your posts of late...and your starting to worry me.

Your thinking, if you follow it through, doesn't make sense. To fire the ramp manager or performance manager, has to do with the VP of that department trying to cover his ### for instituting poor policies, and cutting too many folks. So, what ingeneousness or profound insight will another manager offer, that should be thought out by an already VP. Answer to said problem: GET RID OF THE VP!

Just read an e-mail that I was bcc in by a f/a addressed to Siegel. The f/a was citing that the airplane from MCO to CLT, that left around noon was so dirty he couldn't believe his eyes. He continued to write that it is so obvious that this management has cut too many cleaners, and this is not the first time he is seeing this. This was just one example.

Reply from Siegel verbatim:
" I can tell you that staffing is adequate, so it may be a compliance issue.

Our a/c cleaning stats are up dramatically now that we are measuring and
managing the process.

I will follow up specifically on this incident and get the stats on
cleaning to you

Thanks for your input"

Dave

_____

So, you see, that mangement is "managing the process". This above just happens to deal with the cleaning of a/c, but the true issue is this is someone from the "tippy top" who views a problem from a distance. He automatically thinks that it MUST be a compliance issue, which translates to employee discipline. He will not admit that he furloughed too many folks and now the service is suffering. He believes, in his small Harvard mind, that one person must have the task of many, and perform at the same rate and level taking full responsibility, taking no consideration to the fact that our business IS "time sensitive".

We have a problem in Houston...and its at the TOP. They need to get involved in the process from UP CLOSE.

 

[oldiebutgoody]

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On 7/9/2003 426 PM ClueByFour wrote:


...The solution: run more RJs thru, which take up as much airspace as a bigger plane and carry half the people. Brilliant. You really think that''s going to scale up when things turn around? Remember what PHL was like in 2000? Let''s take the same number of seats, but move them over 1/4 more aircraft. Yeah, that''ll fly.

Unless/until these guys hire or grow some operational clue, the airline is in trouble.

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Exactly. Remember LGA in 2000, when McCain had all the slot restrictions lifted. It turned into an RJ parking lot. Metrojet''s 30 minute turns (yes, they did that in LGA, and it even worked, at first) turned to 2-3 hours, most of it waiting in line for takeoff. Now, Dave and friends want to do this to the entire east coast. I can hardly wait. Then, U won''t be worried about competing with other airlines, but competing with cars, busses, ricshaws and even continental drift!

 

[LavMan]

There is no way it is a compliance issue when the foreman tells the lead on a red eye flight do the security check dump the trash and get off the plane it is flying back to SFO.

Or another example when you have two utility working three gates, a 757 from LAS, a 757 from BOS and a A321 from SJU, all at the same time, how is it a compliance issue when two people can''t be in three places at the same time.

Dave needs to get our of his office and see what reality is.

 

[cubfan02us]

You might be on to something with the "continental drift".

In time Europe will be in range for our mighty SJ fleet...

 

[PHL Flash]

Fired the PHL Ramp Manager? Are you kidding? I believe he has been promoted to Station Manager DEN. And the PHL Manpower & Planning Manager? I think he has been ''reassigned'' to Manager PHL Catering. However, the interesting one is the alleged COB for Manpower & Planning Manager for CCY. The current CCY Manpower Planner (or one of them, if there are more than one) was the PHL Manpower & Planning Manager, until a recent promotion to CCY. In fact, he even came to PHL to ''help out'' with the most recent and current work schedule. He helped the new guy make a work schedule with the drastically reduced manpower numbers for PHL. I wonder if he has been ''reassigned'' ....