Light Years
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- Aug 27, 2002
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So the building that has scheduling and dispatch, is that RIDC Park or is that a different building?
Training To Move To Charlotte
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USA320Pilot
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- May 18, 2003
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Light Years:
Light Years asked: "So the building that has scheduling and dispatch, is that RIDC Park or is that a different building?"
USA320Pilot answers: They're all located in RIDC Park West near Robinson Township in multiple buildings.
Respectfully,
USA320Pilot
Light Years asked: "So the building that has scheduling and dispatch, is that RIDC Park or is that a different building?"
USA320Pilot answers: They're all located in RIDC Park West near Robinson Township in multiple buildings.
Respectfully,
USA320Pilot
ClueByFour
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- Aug 20, 2002
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Is relocation a part of the reservation contract?
Further, one call center, especially given US lack of operational excellence of any kind, is a recipe for disaster. It takes but one good storm and/or power event in INT, and it's goodbye res. There is no doubt in my mind that this would happen just as soon as such a move was made, since US is generally good about not spending a buck now to save 5 later.
The sensible thing for US to do would be to spend a few bucks and let folks work from home in return for a pay concession. Then the issue of "where" becomes somewhat academic, and the entire system (correctly engineered) becomes much more reliable.
Further, one call center, especially given US lack of operational excellence of any kind, is a recipe for disaster. It takes but one good storm and/or power event in INT, and it's goodbye res. There is no doubt in my mind that this would happen just as soon as such a move was made, since US is generally good about not spending a buck now to save 5 later.
The sensible thing for US to do would be to spend a few bucks and let folks work from home in return for a pay concession. Then the issue of "where" becomes somewhat academic, and the entire system (correctly engineered) becomes much more reliable.
USA320Pilot
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- May 18, 2003
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US Airways currently employs 1,795 Reservations Sales Agents (RSA’s) in Pittsburgh and Charlotte, with about half working at each location.
The new business plan envisions simplifying the fare structure, which is expected to lower call time towards LCC levels from the current average time of 5 minutes down to 3 minutes. This move will provide about a 40% increase in productivity. In addition, the company’s advertising campaign is targeting a 100% increase in on-line internet booking, from 10% to 20% of total sales.
From a linear perspective only, an argument could be made that the company’s new business plan will need about 50% or about 900 less RSA’s, which is equal to the amount of RSA’s assigned to either Winston-Salem and Pittsburgh.
Prior to exiting bankruptcy US Airways rejected the Pittsburgh Reservation Sales facility and new lease negotiations on the present office space are not progressing, therefore, there is growing speculation the company could close this facility too, to create further cost efficiency’s and economies of scale, dependent upon future CWA negotiations.
US Airways employed about 400 RSA’s in Orlando when the faculty was closed and only 63 transferred to Winston-Salem and Pittsburgh or about 15% of the workforce. If Pittsburgh is closed and the Orlando closure is used as a rule of thumb than about 135 Pittsburgh RSA’s may transfer to Winston-Salem, provided there are openings.
As with today’s news regarding closing of the Pittsburgh training facilities, it appears Pittsburgh will become less important to US Airways in the future and the labor restructuring continues, regardless of the work group. Moreover, the company has indicated the number of job losses and facility closures will be dependent upon union negotiations, therefore, it appears there is an opportunity going forward to save RSA jobs.
Respectfully,
USA320Pilot
The new business plan envisions simplifying the fare structure, which is expected to lower call time towards LCC levels from the current average time of 5 minutes down to 3 minutes. This move will provide about a 40% increase in productivity. In addition, the company’s advertising campaign is targeting a 100% increase in on-line internet booking, from 10% to 20% of total sales.
From a linear perspective only, an argument could be made that the company’s new business plan will need about 50% or about 900 less RSA’s, which is equal to the amount of RSA’s assigned to either Winston-Salem and Pittsburgh.
Prior to exiting bankruptcy US Airways rejected the Pittsburgh Reservation Sales facility and new lease negotiations on the present office space are not progressing, therefore, there is growing speculation the company could close this facility too, to create further cost efficiency’s and economies of scale, dependent upon future CWA negotiations.
US Airways employed about 400 RSA’s in Orlando when the faculty was closed and only 63 transferred to Winston-Salem and Pittsburgh or about 15% of the workforce. If Pittsburgh is closed and the Orlando closure is used as a rule of thumb than about 135 Pittsburgh RSA’s may transfer to Winston-Salem, provided there are openings.
As with today’s news regarding closing of the Pittsburgh training facilities, it appears Pittsburgh will become less important to US Airways in the future and the labor restructuring continues, regardless of the work group. Moreover, the company has indicated the number of job losses and facility closures will be dependent upon union negotiations, therefore, it appears there is an opportunity going forward to save RSA jobs.
Respectfully,
USA320Pilot
ClueByFour
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- Aug 20, 2002
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Okay, again for those in the back who did not catch it the first time:USA320Pilot said:
The wise person has two call centers, in case of a weather event, power event, or natural disaster at one of them. It's not a volume issue. It's an issue of business continuity. Perhaps that was unclear in my post above.
Without a serious revamp of the underlying IT systems, US will not be cutting call times by simplifying fares. Every time I call (or my nonstatused grandma calls), it's rarely a case of "finding a fare." It's a change, a fix, a reroute, a seat, etc. There are so many other things that a res agent does--if some genius thinks that by going from 27 fares in a city pair (most of which the agents don't quote in any case) to 6 or 8 is going to drop call times, they are absolutely crazy (or, trying to fit a square peg into the round hole that Bronner wants it in).
Finally, US has had incentives for several years to encourage online bookings. The "no booking fee" thing is a small incentive at best, and won't double traffic to the site. The site itself is also in need of a serious revamp--people won't use a site twice that makes it hard to give a company one's money and the US site has been in this category for several years.
In short, the business plan can envision whatever it wants, and US can go ahead and do whatever it wants, but I can say with some degree of certainty (because I diversify facilities and plan/architect/execute disaster recovery plans during my day job) that if they really think that going to 1 single point-of-failure in RES and pinning a headcount reduction on increased traffic to the existing website and fare simplification that US is going under, sooner rather than later.
funny...i didn't have any trouble hitting the hole........Light Years said:As of now MidAtlantic training is being held at Carnot. US has been renting space there to USA3000 as well.
The CLT facility is so much nicer than Carnot. Initial F/A training was in PIT, so you didnt see the CLT center until recurrent, international or a new plane training- when you did it was like "Oh wow- we ARE a real airline!"
The reasoning at the time was that CLT couldnt accomodate the sheer volume of trainees at the time and PIT could. For recurrent, I think PHL and CLT crews went to CLT, and PIT, BOS, DCA, BWI (at the time) and LGA went to PIT.
Carnot is a converted schoolhouse, with bathrooms designed for schoolchildren. :blink:
nycbusdriver
Veteran
Clue -ClueByFour said:
I sent this suggestion to Schofield back in 1995. His minion firehosed the idea as unworkable. I guess that's why our LCC competition find it eminently effective.
Funny that USAirways is trying, or at least says that they're trying, to imitate the best of the LCCs, but this one consistently slips past.
Clue, I think the operative words in your post is that this would be the "sensible thing for US to do." Hence, they won't even consider it. After all, someone much smarter than this lowly pilot found it unworkable. And that is that.
Aren't the Jetblue res agents working out of their home? Why DOESN'T Usair do this? Think of the money that would be saved by the company-leasing the buildings and other expenses associated with it- as well as the money the employees would be saving that would be spent on gas and food as well as the time spent on the road. I know this has been brought up before but why isn't the company addressing this?
USA320Pilot
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- May 18, 2003
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700UW:
Thanks for the catch and the correction.
I stand corrected on Res in Charlotte. I was subconsciously thinking about the Charlotte Flight Crew Training Center located next to the Line Maintenance hangar, since that is what this thread is primarily discussing.
US Airways has two Reservation facilities: one in Greentree and the other in Winston-Salem, which is co-located with Consumer Affairs.
Regardless, the net effect on employees will be the same dependent upon CWA negotiations. The Greentree facility had its lease rejected and there has been little movement on negotiating a new agreement, but that could change. However, from a historical perspective, with the potential to eliminate about 900 high paying customer service positions, I believe the odds are probably greater than 50-50 that Greentree will close and be consolidated with Winston-Salem.
Regards,
USA320Pilot
Thanks for the catch and the correction.
I stand corrected on Res in Charlotte. I was subconsciously thinking about the Charlotte Flight Crew Training Center located next to the Line Maintenance hangar, since that is what this thread is primarily discussing.
US Airways has two Reservation facilities: one in Greentree and the other in Winston-Salem, which is co-located with Consumer Affairs.
Regardless, the net effect on employees will be the same dependent upon CWA negotiations. The Greentree facility had its lease rejected and there has been little movement on negotiating a new agreement, but that could change. However, from a historical perspective, with the potential to eliminate about 900 high paying customer service positions, I believe the odds are probably greater than 50-50 that Greentree will close and be consolidated with Winston-Salem.
Regards,
USA320Pilot
Harry Callahan
Veteran
Delldudedelldude said:
You crack me up lol
Air conditioned
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- Mar 18, 2004
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This may be a long shot, but is there any chance that MAA will move their base to CLT as well as their training faciilties? This sure would make lots of people happy. I overheard some f/a's giggling with delight at the very idea. B)DCAflyer said:
StewGuy86
Senior
Regarding the moving of all training to the CLT facilities, all I can say is "it's about time!" They should've made the move long ago. For years now, there has been no reason to keep that rundown old schoolhouse operating in Moon Township, PA. The whole place was an embarrassing joke and it had "second class airline" written all over it.
