Update On B757 Conversions

[N617P]

Clueless:Anyone who has worked for this airline since August 5th 1989 understands them.They have never had a clue.Decisions are made from the top down.Every department watches things like this take place every day.There is minimal imput from the front line employees.

This airline has existed inspite of itself,mainly bcause of a dedicated work force.We would have been gone long ago if we depended on our managment to run this airline.


Good luck to us all.

 

[MarkMyWords]

Color me stupid, but how will a block deal with flights booked full in the front with seat assignments already made?

The more I think about this, I keep coming back to the move of offering an F sale to a particular destination, and then whacking 2/3 of the inventory on the equipment you planned to use during the duration of the sale. I shake my head. Repeat until dizzy.

Note to self: put consumer affairs on speed dial before leaving on next 757 trip in F.

It won't do much about the roll back from First Class to coach, except ensure that you still have a decent seat versus sscattered around the coach cabin or in a center seat. Blocking row 3-6 means that if you are rolled to coach, there is still a chance that you could be assigned a seat in rows 3-6 - again the agent/css that does the reaccom has to be proactively working the unhonored seat list. It is a better option then being moved from row 3 to row 30B and 30E . No much of a consolation.

 

[Non Rev]

I would think/hope fare is a consideration. What rationale can you possibly give to somebody who paid for F and got Y? I'd demand cash on the spot, myself.

Rationale? The is no rationale with this group of monkeys. Doesnt surprise me one bit they would pull such a stunt.

As far as consideration for amount of fare paid. There is none. Like stated before the computer leaves rows 1, 2 & 3 alone and boots the rest. When i work a downsized 1st class i try to take tier and fare into consideration if time allows. However that is not always the case at the airport.

 

[PHL]

Are they taking the opportunity to do some good, hard cleaning with some strong elbow grease? Fresh carpet, clean upholstry??

How 'bout the IFE system? Will the monitors (some appearing to be hanging by one screw) be swapped out with LCD's (like the airbuses)?

 

[US2]

I will miss the 24 seat 757s. When they used 2L for boarding, making that left turn into a quiet F cabin before a long flight was a nice change from the usual crush of people passing by headed aft. You could always count on overhead space and you had time and room to settle in and get comfortable. Ahh, the good old days of pre departure drinks, decent and sometimes quite good meal service and hot towels....Flying just isn't the same anymore and the 321s, while nice, just aren't the same since they can't use 2L.

 

[RetUSopsmgr]

It shows me again, that Management has not learned from the mistake we made
switching to Sabre 3 weeks before christmas during
a heavy travel Period.
To me it looks like we have no brains in CCY!

 

[nycbusdriver]

I don't see how there will be a huge seat assignment problem. They're adding seat, after all, so theoretically almost every seat that was preassigned will still exist after the modifications. First class was rows 1-6 seats A-C-D-F. After the mod those seats will still exist, except there will be B and E seats in rows 3-6.

It's too bad they didn't at least use the computer to block out any possibility of a seat PREassigment in the middle seats of rows 3-6 until the entire fleet mod was completed. I repeat: PREassigned.

That would mostly eliminate the problems for the gate agents, with the exception of a few exit row seats that may not exist anymore. And for those customers who thought they were getting a FC seat but ended up in the front of coach? Give them their refund, give them their meals/drinks free, and leave the middle seat next to them open. Not a perfect solution, but at least they would have a little bit of extra room and amenities.

 

[tadjr]

I don't see how there will be a huge seat assignment problem. That would mostly eliminate the problems for the gate agents, with the exception of a few exit row seats that may not exist anymore. And for those customers who thought they were getting a FC seat but ended up in the front of coach? Give them their refund, give them their meals/drinks free, and leave the middle seat next to them open. Not a perfect solution, but at least they would have a little bit of extra room and amenities.

Obviously you've never had the pleasure of working a First Class oversale before have ya? Trust me, it isnt a pretty picture. The middle seat blocked is NOT the same thing as the first class seat they've paid for.
Last time we reconfigured (or downsized a plane) we were told if they are in coach, they're in coach. Period. No free drinks, no meal service. It would look inconsistent. So, the people who get downgraded are just going to be out of luck. I just say have lots of consumer affairs addresses printed or have the phone on speed dial. Remember its only 8 seats up there out of a possible 24 so how many Chairmen with families (possibly) could we bump on one flight? This is not going to be a good season for the gate staff. Merry Christmas again from USAirways.
PS- Is there some way we can change the timeline on these things to the middle of summer instead? First Sabre cutover and now this....

 

[MarkMyWords]

NYC -

If only it was that easy. See when you reconfigure the seat map for an 8 seat f/c cabin versus the 24, SABRE isn't smart enough to keep the customers seated in rows 3-6 in those rows because the difference in the class of service. They are going from a F seat to a Y seat. So that is where manual intervention has to come into play. This is where the agent needs to physically move the customer out of F and into Y and reassign the seats. Failure to do that will result in seats in rows 3-6 being assigned on a first come first serve basis. So if I am a customer travelign from PHL to MCO and I was in row 4, during the reaccom I would be on the unhonored seat list. If no one takes the initiative to reassign me to a coach and seat assign me and my family, then I stay on the unhonored seat list until I check in. While I am enroute to the airport, customers in upline stations are checking-in and being reassigned coach seats. Suddenly, when I check-in, the only thing that is left are center seats scattered about the cabin.

That is a very real possibility! It will take extra efforts on the part of the agent or CSS that reaccoms the flight. Tad is correct, if you have to take a first class seat away form a customer, regardless of whether it is a comp upgrade, certificate, or paid and you refund the upgrade, it is going to be a nightmare. I worked many flights during the last conversion that were a nightmare with 4 customer downgrades. I can't even imagine what woudl happen with 16!

All it would take is a delay of 2 weeks and the problems would be greatly reduced. But the rush is on to try and finish the reconfiguration before the Presidents Day weekend rush to Florida and Spring Break (my theory). So we screw with peoples Christmas Holiday to ensure we can sell a total of 11 more seats for Spring Break! (We could have blocked the 16 seats in first, over booked coach by an additional 16 and rolled people into f/c and made many more friends versus rolling 16 people out of f/c to coach.) There could have been a better way to handle this.


PS ( the middle seats in rows 3-6 are blocked out....in fact all seats in rows 3-6 are now blocked until day of departure when the seat maps are reconfigured for the type of airplane that will be flying the route. Once the reaccom has been doen, the seats are opened for assignment again.)

 

[DCAflyer]

Could the sudden acceleration of these AC be a response to LUV entering PHL?

I remember some fairly lenghty discussions earlier this year about DAL assigning 757s to SONG as their LCC response... their reasoning being that it is more cost/revenue effective to operate 757s. I am wondering if U is using this logic and will dedicate the reconfigured 757s to fly head-to-head with LUV, both in and out of Philly and perhaps on other overlapping routes. It may make sense to flood those routes with seats on a suprior AC with at least SOME F-class availability and hopefully superior service, diminishing our competition's ability to fill a plane with revenue PAXs.

If this is U's line of reasonging, it would be gratifying to know that FINALLY we aren't taking this intrusion lying down and that we are coming up with a VIABLE plan to compete with them and hopefully leave them choking on their company Koolaid.

-DCAflyer

 

[harleyrider]

:censored: I don't know, about all of you but, if you are going to try to rape the labor groups some more, the best way is to not show a profit, ...... SO, ....... management has once again, decided to do things over the holidays. Let's PISS OFF our passengers some more. HEY, we're not happy until your not happy !! So fly NEGATIVE AIR !! Dave, don't want you ever coming back !!!!!!!!!

 

[delldude]

its like the spoiled brats of the play station generation take on U.

 

[tadjr]

When the 757 conversion was announced many months ago, the primary plan, so I thought, was to use the reconfigured planes to start service back into LGA/BOS to Florida and from the hubs to leisure destinations such as Florida/Caribbean and LAS/PHX. They were going to add back service with these reconfigured planes to places that we had dropped with the traditional configuration as unprofitable. With the "new plan (what letter are we up to)" coming out though, who knows what they plan on doing with these now. Maybe we'll finally get that PIT-PHL Shuttle we've been working toward.

 

[MarkMyWords]

I am not so sure that the intention was to go back the the LGA/BOS to FLorida market, but to more closely match capacity with demand on the routes currently flown with B757's. Since there are 16 B757's that are overwater capable, I am sure you will see an uplift in seats to some of the popular caribbean cities during the peak season. The islands are similar to FL where there isn't a strong demand for premium seats. So the 8/185 configuration would be great. I know that AUA is getting B757 flying starting Sunday, out of both PHL and CLT.

Not to say that we couldn't go form LGA/BOS to FL, but I don't think the reconfiguration was originally planned specifically to restart those routes.