It seems we have an awful lot of newbies to the US Forum. Why not introduce yourselves to the rest of us here? Since many of you are offering opinions on the future of US it might be helpful to hear some of your US experiences also.

Okay, my name is Klaus, I live in Germany and fly 3 to 4 times a year to the states. I stay with US since 6 years and since 3 years I am Silver. My experiences on US are very good. This Airline with his employers are very pleasant and helpful all the time to me, even as a DM without Status.
Before, I had some bad experiences with NW, AC and LH by delays and cancellations.
The biggest think to me was in early 2004 on a flight TPA-CLT-FRA. Because of snowstorm in CLT the flight was cancelled. I spoke to the GA and he rebooked me to TPA-PHL-FCO-FRA, so I arrived in FRA only 4 hours later. On the PHL-FCO he gave me a Envoy Seat, first time for me to stay in Envoy. This I will never forget, because next Day I was alone at the office.
I really hope, that US makes his way out of the trouble.

For 2005 I have booked the following flights:
Jan 22 FRA-CLT-LAX US193
Jan 23 FRA-PHL US46
Jan 24 PHL-MBJ US1463
Feb 04 MBJ-CLT-FRA US834/192

A happy new Year to all.

Klaus

I have homes in Indiana and Boston and so fly regularly between them on US Airways Express (Chatauqua/Republic) and have been Silver Preferred for three years. Now that Northwest (Airlink) also flies direct between IND and BOS and US is in such bad shape, my loyalty to US is sorely tried.

I am new to FlyerTalk and just relocated from PHL to Kansas City. I have been a long-time US flyer, but have been taking my business elsewhere because 1) I did not want to invest my status miles on a sinking ship, and 2) my relocation to a regional sales position in the midwest. My GP status just lapsed.

Sure, when I lived in CLT and PHL I enjoyed the access US gave me. I hope US makes it, but when I see consistent substandard performance by US PHL baggage handlers, when I see UAL at least making an effort with free music and Economy Plus, and other things, I just don't see a big reason to keep giving US my business until they get their act together.

Hi, all.

I have to say that people here seem quite friendly! I've been reading the FlyerTalk forums for some time, but dediced to participate only recently. Several people have already welcomed me.

I'd say that I travel more than the average person, but nowhere near as often as the average FlyerTalk denizen. Most of my trips over the years have been Canada - US, US coast-to-coast, and Canada/US - Europe. I am also a big Amtrak and VIA patron, having crossed the US and Canada by train several times (including a jaunt to Hundson Bay).

When I fly, I fly coach. I have always taken great pleasure in finding airfare deals. When I travel by train, I go first class, though I rarely pay full fare.

I grew up in Scarborough -- formerly a suburb of Toronto, now part of the city itself. My parents and sister live there, so it's one of my most frequent destinations. Pearson, even with Trillium Terminal 3 and the new Terminal 1, remains an awful airport. I grew up during the Trudeau years and will never understand how my fellow Canadians could repudiate Mirabel (the world's largest and most advanced airport at the time) and then block Pickering (a carbon copy slated for the Toronto area).

Air Canada was for me a great source of pride, especially when I when traveled to Europe during the summers, as a child. Today, its operations in San Francisco are a source of embarrassment for all Canadians. I find the local staff to be mean and the schedules to be lacking. I'd still pick Air Canada over the US flag carriers, though.

As for the airline in general, I am horrified that anyone would broach the subject of stopping English/French bilingual service. However, I am glad that Air Canada has made progress on the technology front. Their automated check-in kiosks have a rich-enough repertoire of business rules to support check-in for international flights (try that on United or American). Air Canada also deployed kiosks much earlier than most US flag carriers. The Web site has improved dramatically: a programmer in Winnipeg discovered the concepts of one-way and multi-city bookings in 2004! Now, if only I could book Star Alliance award travel at aeroplan.com!

Now, on to US Airways. My mom grew up in Philadelphia, and when I was growing up, the only choices for YYZ - PHL were Air Jamaica and USAir. I remember an awful experience on the latter (delay out of Philadelphia, no updates, eventual rebooking on another carrier) when my grandmother died, in 1984. We avoided USAir after that.

I went to college in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, rediscovering USAir at that point. The new Pittsburgh airport is lovely. I have always appreciated the low-price commitment built-in to the leases for the many businesses in the airport. I don't have to spend $7 on a cup of coffee! It's a shame that US Airways is reducing its activity in Pittsburgh.

One important thing about me is that I don't own a car and haven't driven in over a decade. Accordingly, I've always paid attention to transit access at airports. Pittsburgh used to be horrible in that respect. We had the Air Lines Transportation Company shuttle. It was so unreliable that I started taking a taxi. At $40 each way, this was sometimes more expensive than my air ticket! I wrote to the Allegheny County Commissioners, urging them to consider extending bus service to the airport. I still have a letter from idiot airport director Herb Higginbotham, saying something to the effect that, "people just aren't interested in riding a bus to the airport." Within two years, the 28X Airport Flyer bus was inaugurated, and federal money began flowing for the West Busway. Pittsburgh now has excellent airport bus service. Take that, Herb.

In the mid-1990's, USAir still had bona fide student fares (no coupons, cards, or other gimmicks required). I took a trip to visit relatives in Philadelphia, and was sold from that point on. I soon switched my Toronto - Pittsburgh flights from Delta (the dominant carrier on that route, pre-Open Skies) to USAir.

After college I moved to San Francisco. From here, I use US Airways for flights to Toronto and Pittsburgh. In the days when the weekly Web specials were fairly advertised, with most taxes included, I'd think nothing of spending a weekend in Pittsburgh. I also landed a $208 fare from San Francisco to Toronto in spring of 2001.

These days I do a little less flying -- I'm cashing miles instead of earning them! In 2003-2004 I cashed in 100,000 Aeroplan miles (two trips for my husband and me, to Toronto) and 25,000 AAdvantage miles (grad school visit for my husband). I did have a great San Jose - Minneapolis - Detroit - Paris - Amsterdam - Toronto - Minneapolis - San Jose trip in September, 2004 on Northwest / KLM / Pinnacle. I didn't plan the domestic hops as a mileage run, but rather, as a way of avoiding the DC-10. (I am a computer scientist and have always been fascinated by the applications and consequences of technology. I like to study technological risk, and this includes air accident reports and congressional testimony from the early widebody days. Accordingly, I don't fly DC-10s/MD-11s. I wish L-1011's were still in commercial service. Sometimes the best and safest technology still loses out.)

I now live south of San Francisco, in Santa Cruz. I dislike all three San Francisco Bay Area airports, in varying degrees.

San Jose is physically close but very transit-unfriendly; on weekends I can get to San Francisco in less time! San Jose (except Southwest's terminal) smacks of a primitive airport, with no jetways, almost no concessions, etc.

Oakland is hot and crowded these days. I love to watch stupid people ride the exclusive AirBART shuttle, which costs several dollars. I just catch the AC Transit #50 bus, which travels the same route and costs only $1.25. I'm an ordinary person and I feel at home among other ordinary people.

San Francisco gets points in that one can walk the entire airport in under 15 minutes. I like to get some exercise before spending a few hours seated in coach! Unfortunately, the airport is overbuilt, with billions wasted on capital projects like the BART connection, the monorail, and the International Terminal. Anyone who doesn't believe me should wander through the old international terminal, ghostly in its emptiness. It is awaiting renovation. The BART connection is slow, underused, and overpriced. When I lived in Downtown San Francisco I could catch a SamTrans express bus to the airport for $3.00. It took less time than riding the new BART line, and had longer hours. And the trip on BART costs almost $5.00! Again, it was a question of being willing to mingle with other ordinary people.

Sooner or later, our local politicians will wise up and build a modern mega-airport for the San Francisco Bay Area. They ought to learn from the Toronto experience: the government still holds the lands expropriated thirty years ago for Pickering, and has finally conceded that a new airport will have to built there, and soon. Building a new airport in the Bay Area will involve spending lots of money, expropriating lots of land, and fighting lots of short-sighted people. Let's begin before SFO, OAK and SJC are saturated again!

I'll close with a positive comment about SFO. If you haven't done so already, visit the museum and library, next to the chapel in the new International Terminal. This is an exact replica of the original 1937 airport waiting room, with beautiful marble flooring and fancy architectural effects. You can browse the museum display (as of December, 2004, a display about flight attendants and their work over the decades) or page a book and read for an hour or two. Little touches like this make SFO a genuinely pleasant airport.

Looking forward to chatting with FlyerTalk people,

Paul Marcelin-Sampson
Santa Cruz, California, USA

Hello all,
I live in NH and fly US out of a great, smaller airport MHT. Only about 20 minutes to my house. Me and the wife have flown US 90% of the time, over the past 15 years. We are about once or twice-a-year flyers.
I can say only what I have experienced in our limited traveling with US. Never lost a bag, other than a weather delay, always on time and never been bumped. Most of the time we have flown through PHL. We always take the first flight out and have been able to pick the connections that leave us around one hour to connect. If it is a little more, we grab a bite and stretch the legs. I always get to the airport at least 90 minutes before the flight, sometimes more. I rather get there, get checked in, then risk being caught in traffic and or have any other emergencies, delay us. Many times they have put us on a plane leaving earlier than our scheduled flights, which is a win-win. (note: I have never had to fly for business, so we control most of the issues that others can not. I can appreciate the frustration of trying to get home and having airline issues, versus being a totally leisure flyer).
So we like US, would be sad to see them go, as I have a friend that is a pilot for US and they are the second largest carrier at our airport. We have an upcoming flight 1-12 - 1-19, MHT - LAS. So while have been visiting this board for a couple of years, learning lots, I thought I would ask some experts about our upcoming trip. Great input and have helped me form a back up plan, just in case. So that is who I am! Happy New Year to all.

Pete

As you can see from the my profile, I'm not so much a US flyer (mainly because I live in Cleveland and I've really hated RJs for the flights to Philly). When it comes to international flights, I'm looking at a price point more than anything else, so that explains my flight coming up.

As for my viewpoint towards US, I've never had any major problems with them in the past, but the very high costs ($225 or so, W class) of the CLE-PHL route (combined with the very low apparent demand) and my short-haul flying (I fly 8 times a year, 1000 miles RT, so status is almost impossible) makes it difficult for them to be a prime airline on my list.

(That is why I tend to fly WN [easier to get free tickets] a lot - and I respectfully ask that I not get flamed for that. Such is my right, much like yours to fly US or any other airline.)

I am a Philadelphian second time around. Lived here 1995-97 and again since 2001. And figure to settle down here for a while. I was a Delta Silver when living in ATL (who isn't?) and was an AA Gold here until end of 2003.

I am always willing to take connections and so flew AA a lot (because of MRTC) since US Airways usually had high fares on their non-stops. Since early 2004, I started flying UA (Econ+ and trips to Australia, London) and have qualified as a UA Premier for 2005. When flying US (mostly on short day trips) I ask for miles to my UA acct. I have at times found UA to charge lower fares than US for exactly the same flights as the code-share flights operated by US.

The code-shares are the reasons I follow the US AIrways forum.

I work in travel consulting for major corporations, specialising in airline travel. Consequently, I follow the sector closely, and keep tabs on Flyertalk and USAviation to get a feel for travellers and airline employees. I have often found Flyertalk people to be very knowledgeable (much more than many corporate travel managers) and share their opinions with colleagues and clients.

If you have any questions about Philly or PHL airport, I am willing to help.

I'm an Eastern Shore of MD guy. I use Salisbuty a lot. Have saved up 150,000 miles and I'm P.O.'d. I FINALLY get to a point where I travel a bunch and they seem to be pulling the rug out from under me! (as well as all of you)

Anyway, I'm glad I found the forum, I hope we have reason to post on it for many years....but I'm not holding my breathe!

I am from Malvern, Pennsylvania and PHL is my primary airport.
Use to fly a lot on NW DC-9 from PHL to Detroit then to Asia Pacific, but stop doing that after getting out from college.

After joining a German company, I fly a lot on US, mostly to RDU and MUC. 90% of my flights with US resulted with either delay or missing baggage. However, if US runs out of business, the only thing I can choose is either LH or AF, which I need to make connection either at Frankfurt of Paris.

I live in St. Croix USVI and my wife lives in Washington DC. Fortunatley my companies biggest client is in DC as well, so I go back and forth every few weeks. I fly about 80,000 miles a year doing this and other trips for business. I was flying AA for a bit, but had several bad experiences. The last one involved trying to leave DC on a Sunday but not actually leaving until Wednesday. 3 straight days of cancelled flights at both DCA and IAD, and the attitude of the AA GA at a time when I was dividing my business between US and AA pushed me to the US side. Actually the fact that US flies the beautiful A330 from SJU-PHL also had something to do with it too! Even though AA offers much more convenient routing to STX (DCA-MIA-STX instead of DCA-PHL-SJU-STX via Caribbean Sun), US has been so much more reliable and friendly that I wouldn't go back. Since that bad experience I've done about 65,000 miles on US and am enjoying every upgrade on the A330!

The recently announced go fares from DCA to ATL on direct flights are fantastic as well. I fly down there a few times a year and have been using the less convenient DCA-CLT-ATL routing of US over the direct routing of Airtran or DL, but will now be able to get direct service at an even better price from US if they can keep this ship afloat.

Sean

A job transfer brought me to PHL. I do some business travel but not at the road warrior level. 2005 will be the 7th year at SP or GP with US. Sure would like to use it some <G>.

I've considered long and hard switching to UA this year. Would probably help with the ORD / SFO / LIH trips. Not sure about the LAS / MCO / ZRH trips. Still trying to piece together the route maps and schedules.

I'm pulling for US to survive but if it does, I hope I don't find the customer service I've known amputated to save the patient.

Have been lurking for a while, and finally started to really contribute. Very quickly, I'm getting hooked on FlyerTalk, rather unfortunate that US is in such bad shape given that I've just found this great new resource. I work in public relations in Washington, DC, and am a huge fan of National, one of the nicer airports I've been in, in a long time. As a note, I just realized that I am not the only "DC Mike" username on here - there's also "dcmike." Doh!

I've been a long-time US flyer, mainly because I grew up in upstate NY and did a lot of East Coast flying. Used to fly Piedmont from ALB through BWI to MIA, and miss those days, it was a good airline with people who cared. I'm not a regular business traveler, fly for fun, and still like the experience, even though I wish we could return to the days when flying was exciting and glamourous, as opposed to today, when even on a good airline, it still feels a bit like cattle herding.

I'm really hoping US survives, because on the East Coast, their network gets you to all of the smaller cities easily, and I can't see any one carrier filling that need - I think it will leave a real hole in the airline industry if US folds, despite insistances of people who say that there are too many carriers, I think US' routes are pretty unique.

Hi All.
I live in Riverside, CA since 1950 (almost a native).
I was introduced to FT via a friend. Great site with a lot of info.
I used to travel mainly the southwest US. Had a successful project and now I'm a commuter from So Cal to Chicago. Using "The OC" (Orange County CA) as base.
Switched to AA from America West (got tired of hubbing). Appreciate the extra room in coach, as I haven't figured the in's and out's of upgrading on AA. Just got Platinum through the challenge. I'll travel over 100k this year.
Any input on the in's & out's mentioned above would be appreciated.
Happy New Year to all!

OK. Hello to all.

I just found this site through an attempt at googling my way to an answer to the (seemingly popular) question of the day: "To book US Airways or not to book US Airways?"

Briefly, I'm a US Airways Silver frequent flyer in Pittsburgh. Lucky me. I've had some truly-terrific experiences on the airline and some not-so-terrific experiences as well. But over the years, I've remained a loyal customer, which admittedly was easy to do with PIT as a hub city. I'd like to continue to be a loyal customer, but it's getting very tricky to do:

* Obviously, booking with the airline is a roll of the dice these days. I booked a trip yesterday for a US flight just two weeks away, and I'm nervous about it. Booking anything but the most frivolous of travel comes with a ridiculous amount of risk.

* Silver has become a second-class metal. For example, the simple act of holding a brand VISA card entitles boarding at the same time as silver customers. It seems that the days of rewards for real travel in the 25,000 mile range are gone. And 25,000 miles is alot when you do it like we did: on purely recreational trips, without playing games, and without a corporation footing the bill. Another example is the new promotion featuring 20,000 preferred miles simply for booking 5 tickets through the website, which is downright insulting to those of us who've actually travelled those miles, one trip at a time, on the airline for years. The list goes on.

* PIT is no longer the US Airways airport it once was. I purchased a ticket to Paris for March on Air France with less money. I didn't enjoy doing it, I knew I was giving up miles, but a) the trip is important to me and I just wasn't willing to gamble and b) see item number 2.

So, I'm looking for ways to use the 120k miles I've earned on this airline in as risk-free, painless way possible. I'm considering using 80k of them on a duplicate first-class booking for the Paris trip, knowing I have the Air France coach seats as a backup.

I just don't know, but I'm with a lot of the other posters I see on this site: the troubles with the airline, and the looks for its future, are heartbreaking. For the employees sake, and for passengers booked on the airline, I truly hope they pull through and solve their problems.

Karen

Thank you everyone that has posted your story. I always find it interesting how everyone feels about FT,US.

I want to add my wish that US recovers and all the workers still have jobs. I have been on unemployment and it isn't fun.

Anyone else want to add their story?

Long time lurker, first time poster. :)

I'm a DCA based US3 -- up until Nov '03 I didn't really travel that much for work, but with a new job came a lot of flying. I didn't really commit to US as my preferred metal until March '04 or so, and consequently just missed making US2 in '04. When I did commit, I did so after I began to monitor the FT US forum. I liked what I saw, both from the roaches and from US, and decided to cast my lot in with you folks. I've learned a TON from this forum, and I want all of the regulars -- l4pm, safetymom, envoyboy, etc -- to know how much I, and I'm sure a lot of other lurkers, appreciate your wisdom.

I haven't regretted my decision to focus my flying with US. The customer service has been top-notch, the aircraft are by and large superior, and since making Silver, my upgrade ratio has been pretty good. As a DCA flyer, US is the obvious choice -- but I'd go with US even if another carrier seriously competed with them. That said, I'm worried now.

I really see the PHLXMAS debacle as the beginning of the end. I work for a labor union, so I'm the last person who could be accused of harboring antiunion biases -- but what the PHL baggage handlers did is one of the stupidest, most self-destructive stunts I've ever seen. It trashed US's already fragile reputation, and it must have killed morale among the GAs, FAs, and pilots. Add to that the IAM's apparent willingness to strike, and I fear US's days are numbered in the double-digits.

But it's been a fun ride, and I'm out of lurk mode to ride out the rest ofr US's story with the FT community. I'm staying with US to the bitter end, but I'm beginning to think about where a DCA-based flyer who travels across the country -- not to any specific regions -- might go when US passes into the night. I'd appreciate speculation/suggestions from any other DCA based roaches.