What Will The Flight Schedule Look Like In Sept?

[Light Years]

Will there be MidAtlantic customer service personnel, or is ME kinda the ground equivalent?

Its the same idea- shifting mainline employees to vaguely defined divisions still doing mainline type work on mainline-type planes- but under contracts that are inferior to not only LCCs but even commuters. A Comair flight attendant has a much better contract and compensation than a former-mainline MidAtlantic F/A working on a mainline type aircraft. Similarly, a former mainline Mainline express agent is making far less to handle mainline aircraft as well as commuters than the Comair equivalent does to work commuters only. The scary part is that the new generation of 70-90 seaters allow most of the airline to be MidAtlantic/mainline express.

So if indeed MAA will have a customer service division (each of the three wholly owneds do) your flight could be handled by mainline, mainline express, MidAtlantic, PSA, Piedmont, or Allegheny employees- again, seperate hiring, training, administration etc.

This company has a real problem with simplicity. Too many fares, fleet types, classifications, vice presidents, affiliates, close-together hubs, subsidiaries... and excuses.

 

[<./']>]

Mid-Atlantic flights are handled by Mainline or Mainline Express stations. There are no separate customer service positions for MAA/MDA. Ramp can be Mainline or contracted out through FSA company. There isn't any mainline express ramp positions.

 

[mweiss]

...go-fares...three...flights ORF-LGA. Two ORF-BOS. Two ORF-JAX. One ORF-MCO. A couple ORF-PHL. A couple ORF-CLT, with lots of RJ's in between.

ORF-LGA would have to quadruple in demand under go-fares to support three flights a day at 80% load factor. That'd surprise me. JAX currently has twice the pax as LGA, and CLT has half the LGA load (though, granted, it could pull connecting pax, but then it's no longer the point-to-point model is it?).

...three RIC-LGA. Two RIC-BOS. Two RIC-MCO. One RIC-MIA. A couple RIC-PHL. A couple RIC-CLT, and lots of RJ's in between.

LGA would handle three flights at 80% LF with double the current demand, a reasonable expectation of the impact of go-fares. BOS would handle two with double the current demand. MCO would require triple, and MIA would require quadrupling the current demand. PHL and CLT would require triple as well.

RJ service from both cities to CLT and PHL will be frequent.

Hardly point-to-point, then, eh?

 

[robbedagain]

my city is mainline express and we are going to be working midatlantic emb 170 starting this week and the actual first flight goes out at 820am the 6th of june we are mainline express employees with the fsa covered by iam and the inside covered by cwa

 

[Air conditioned]

... your flight could be handled by mainline, mainline express, MidAtlantic, PSA, Piedmont, or Allegheny employees- again, seperate hiring, training, administration etc.

This company has a real problem with simplicity.

Good grief. Where will it all end. Are they EVER going to address this? Or, better yet, why didn't they a long time ago? :huh:

Do they eventually intend to have a MAA customer service division?
Anybody know?

Do other airlines have this many departments/divisions/categories/compartments or just U? :angry:

 

[<./']>]

Mainline Express is just for CWA represented employees. The IAM didn't allow that to happen to them, so they are just furloughed(or transferred)! There isn't any Mainline Express rampers.

 

[robbedagain]

[quote name='<' date='./'']>,May 27 2004, 10:09 PM] Mainline Express is just for CWA represented employees. The IAM didn't allow that to happen to them, so they are just furloughed(or transferred)! There isn't any Mainline Express rampers.[/quote]
we have a few folks here that had to stay for different reasons and we are iam members in a mainline express city we do however have a few new hires as well and now most of them are also iam members i do know this because i do work in a mainline express city

 

[deltawatch]

ORF-LGA would have to quadruple in demand under go-fares to support three flights a day at 80% load factor. That'd surprise me. JAX currently has twice the pax as LGA, and CLT has half the LGA load (though, granted, it could pull connecting pax, but then it's no longer the point-to-point model is it?).
LGA would handle three flights at 80% LF with double the current demand, a reasonable expectation of the impact of go-fares. BOS would handle two with double the current demand. MCO would require triple, and MIA would require quadrupling the current demand. PHL and CLT would require triple as well.Hardly point-to-point, then, eh?

When Piedmont was matching PeopleExpress fares years ago, both airlines ran 10 to 12 flights a day ORF-EWR. And Piedmomt ran another 6 to LGA. If the fare is right the markets there.

The flights to CLT and PHL would feed the "new" hubs. Lakefield said the hubs would remain but see more and more RJ action. Low fares is uncharted territory in many of these markets!

 

[<./']>]

we have a few folks here that had to stay for different reasons and we are iam members in a mainline express city we do however have a few new hires as well and now most of them are also iam members i do know this because i do work in a mainline express city

So you're IAM represented rampers working for FSA(contractor) doing the same job you did before, but for a lot less money? I'd be proud of that, not!

 

[johnnyfleet]

[quote name='<' date='./'']>,May 29 2004, 01:01 AM]
So you're IAM represented rampers working for FSA(contractor) doing the same job you did before, but for a lot less money? I'd be proud of that, not![/quote]
Wrong,
the second round of concessions included Ramp mainline express, still in the IAM contract, but at lower wages.

 

[tadjr]

Back in the Metrojet days we also operated a TPA-ORF flight. Maybe if they started something like TPA-ORF-BOS so you could get both local and thru customers with GoFares then it might work if there isnt enough local demand to fill both segments. Inventory could easily cap thru customers at X number of seats so you arent filling a flight with all thru people. We used to have all kinds of flights like this.
TPA-IND-CMH-BOS, TPA-CLE-BUF, TPA-BDL-SYR. As long as there is potential in the local segments, they ought to run them as thru flights to get some additional traffic flow going on the thru segments. People would prefer the direct flights instead of having to make a connection (even if its the same plane different flight number) and you could have loads of direct point to point service like someone else does.....

Also regarding ORF, with the addition of GoFares in the ORF market you could possibly get back some of the people from ORF who are no doubtedly traveling to PHF to get to LGA/MCO on Airtran.

 

[Light Years]

Good grief. Where will it all end. Are they EVER going to address this? Or, better yet, why didn't they a long time ago? :huh:

Do they eventually intend to have a MAA customer service division?
Anybody know?

Do other airlines have this many departments/divisions/categories/compartments or just U? :angry:

No. US Airways, the nations seventh largest airline, a drop in the bucket compared to the other US majors, and that really only covers one part of the country, takes the cake for this. US has more "Express" partners flying under its banner than any other airline, I believe in the world.

There are currently ten Express carriers: Allegheny, Piedmont, PSA, MidAtlantic, Mesa, Air Midwest, Colgan, Trans States, Chautaqua, and Shuttle America. Until quite recently there was also Midway Airlines, and before that Commutair and CCAir.

For ground ops certain stations are staffed by the wholly-owneds. Hub-wise, Allegheny does PHL, LGA, and BOS, Piedmont CLT and DCA, and PSA PIT. The rest I assume go by where these three originally flew- with a few exceptions, the South tend to be PDT, the more western (relatively speaking) PSA, and northeast ALG. Many stations are ground handled by wholly-owned but dont get any service from the airline they work for. So there really is no reason to have three seperate customer service operations.

There are some exceptions too, for example Shuttle America operates the FWA, TTN, BED, and until recently HGR stations. There may be some other situations like that (Like the Kansas cities, anyone know who staffs those?).

Robbedagain can explain Mainline Express better than I can, but these are stations that have been made Express but can still handle a certain number of mainline flights.

In this months Attache in the Your Turn section (my second favorite section after the route map ) we're told that Allegheny (mainline USAir predeccessor) was the first airline to codeshare when they signed an agreement with Henson (now Piedmont) for service out of HGR. I'm not sure if US Airways can really claim to have invented codesharing, but the Allegheny Commuter and Piedmont Commuter System were pretty much the blueprint for "Express" carriers as we know them today. Of course, at the time they really were commuter aircraft, not state-of-the-art large jets like the 170 that can easily prform most of the mainline's routes.

As for other airlines, it depends on which. Some have a single airline, owned or IPO'd, that operates its "Express" flights, and have its own customer service. Some have affiliates and the affiliates staff the flights customer service wise.

The Comair strike and current race to the bottom labor wise have inspired alot of airlines to do it the US Airways way. You'll see Air Wisconsin landing in LA, or SkyWest in Washington, Comair in Dallas- they no longer want one carrier serving a hub. With the increased reliance on RJs, a single carrier could do a lot of damage if they strike. Delta saw thier CVG hub virtually close because it was really a Comair hub with a few Delta flights. And the more Express carriers, the more they compete for routes, which they win by being the cheapest- hence US using Mesa to a large degree, they'll undercut anyone.

All that said, in some tiny ways US has addressed this by combiningAllegheny and Piedmont, and bringing some jets in-house at PSA and the MAA division. But they are still trying to contract that work out too. If Billy Bob Air came along with two 70 seater and said they'd fly them in US colours for $30 a month, US would be on it like white on rice.

Airline management doesnt understand airline employees and how they feel about thier company. They dont understand how someone can vote down a concession, talk badly about mgmt, and then in the next breath see one of our planes take off and smile proudly. Dividing and contracting the place to a point to where you have no idea who works where or does what is cheap, but horrible operation and product-wise. Airline employees like to feel its thier airline, and that they are part of a single team. Thats where pride comes from. The airlines we are compared to that are so successful, JetBlue, Southwest- they are all one team with the same agenda and goals. At US Airways and friends, the agenda of one is not the same, the cheap help has no pride, and the replaced and remaining have thiers drained.

 

[Light Years]

test

 

[Reservation Agent]

I think this regional jet experiment will be a HUGE failure!...

To continue to reduce capacity with reports that passenger levels are now back to pre-911 levels is baffling....

It only makes pulling in revenue more difficult with the smaller aircraft, in competing with Southwest, Jetblue and America West, as well as the other legacy carriers... 70 seats versus 120 seats...

With fears of being overweight when fully loaded...having to delay baggage with the weight restrictions....and the publics perceived less roomyness in regional jets as in comparrison with Southwests B737's...And all the bad weather days that will be affecting flights next winter....

It will be very difficult for U to gain enough revenue to compete, I believe... You cannot increase fares for the fewer seats to make up for the the reduced capacity difference...

With schedule eliminations...it only drains your resources to accommodate your passengers on the other airlines when you have no other scheduled flights of your own to accommodate when you have flight cancellations...

The point to point plan is basicially a plan to eliminate service to smaller cities deemed not profitable enough...Try to replace experienced personnel with less experience, training & knowledge the current staff...

Mabey this is like the Movie..."Back To The Future" and we can rename the airline..."Allegheny Airlines"....
:unsure:

 

[robbedagain]

I currently work in a mainline express city and the capped limit is 2 jets a day that is scheduled (in our case only 1 jet we have) and still get paid the express wages with a top pay scale of 13.00 an hr after 12 yrs. And in my city, there were a number of us that DID stay because of different personal reasons. some are cwa agents covered by the cwa contracts and the others are IAM members covered under the iam contract. our fleet service was not outsourced but the station was outsourced from mainline to mainline express. We are technically a mainline city with express wages.