You know whats nice...

That America West was free as a bird! US Airways is part of the star alliance. If america west was part of Skyteam (big possiblility) or oneworld(not so big) merging would be much more dreaded. There would be a big fight which alliance to keep. Thousands of customers would be angry. The merged airline could possibly loose a lot of buisness from customers. THe only valid solution would be remain in 2 alliance or merge 2 alliances together. Im might be getting a bit bizzare, but we here at US Airways must be likely everything is leaning towards our side. Our name our ff program, even our alliance! Just some food for thought...

They are still going to lose thousands of customers by adopting many of HP's LCC policies at US.

You know whats nice...

That America West was free as a bird!


And I liked it that way.

Our name our ff program,

I wasn't aware that the DM name was a perk. :p

They are still going to lose thousands of customers by adopting many of HP's LCC policies at US.

I don't think US needed HP to adopt LCC policies. In fact, calling some of US's moves "LCC policies" is an insult to profitable airlines. They're not "LCC policies".....they're desperation policies. They're "we can't think of one more thing to cut so we're going to save a Million by cutting out pretzels" policies. And yes, I know the pretzels are returning. They are "let's serve soggy pizza in the box as an arrival snack in our International Envoy Class, for which we won several awards 7 years ago and then trashed" policies. They're "snack box in domestic first" policies. Feel free to add your own.

LCC's, and I'm primarily speaking of WN, B6, and FL here.....have always defined what they are. No one ever judged them as having an inferior product, because they haven't pretended to be something they aren't. In fact, I find it ironic that the king LCC - Southwest - doesn't charge for snackboxes on their flights over three hours - while the legacy carriers do.

I think that America West has done an amazing job shedding the "America Worst" moniker after years of bad service. They've set afloat a formerly-sinking ship and have inspired confidence from their core customers. US has had management failure after management failure; and the only thing they've managed to shed, sadly, are thousands of employees who dedicated their lives to a company whose multiple "leadership" teams let them down.

I make no mistake about it. US didn't perform some miraculous recovery to exit bankruptcy. They, and their globally-marketable name, got bought out. That's the reason there's still a US Airways.

Hopefully, the thousands of customers who don't like the new policies will realize that HP is what is keeping US in the Star Alliance....and in the air.

They are still going to lose thousands of customers by adopting many of HP's LCC policies at US.

When the new/current US management did this at HP, they lost a few and gained more. Loads and yields are higher than ever.

They're betting they can do it again.

I think their biggest bet to woo passengers, current or otherwise, is on rational pricing. Given the routes and network, if they can restructure pricing and policies to be reasonable and fair in the minds of customers (one would think that shouldn't be too difficult given US's history) and provide good, consistent operational performance, I believe they're confident they will fill the planes, whether it be with current gold members or new ones.