ATC

I disagree that this is fairly unimportant. We may all feel silly asking about these things because they seem trivial, but the fact that we go ahead and ask anyhow belies the supposed insignificance.

Missing among the list of assets in Mr. Seigel's latest Powerpoint presentation was the US Airways "image." Bear with me here. Sometime back I was whiling away time with a few fellow passengers during a weather delay, and we got around to one of any frequent flyer's favorite activity: compare and contrast the various airlines. We agreed that for the most part the airlines were fairly similar, but there are some subtle differences. We ended up agreeing that US Airways seemed slightly "classier" than the other majors.

Now this was puzzling, and we asked ourselves "why?" Our vague theories included the fact that the demographics of east coast travel meant that you would generally have a lot of well-dressed business types on each flight. Looking around, this certainly seemed to be the case. We also thought the US Airways rebranding effort, with the new livery, uniforms, and theme song was nothing short of brilliant. On thinner ice, we speculated that perhaps the older workforce (which seemed the case on this particular day) contributed to the impression.

Regardless of the reason, US Airways should be capitalizing on this image. They need to differentiate themselves from the pack, and what better lever than "class?"

Rather than switching to plastic picnic cups, they should be giving us crystal.