hi guys,
i am an lh sen flying thousands of miles each months.
mainly to asia and in the usa to pit,cvg,phx,san.

i have been in phl 3 times since the middle of july,business and vacation.

to tell you the truth we never had any flight delays even on us airways flights.
but the weather was always good.

but beeing in phl about 25 times altogehter in 2007 i could tell you other stories.

the flight times to pit and cle are usually around 50 minutes once you are airborne.

but getting airborne is the problems.
***taxi times are killing this airport***.
if you are beeing told by the fc that you are number 18 for take off.
this is even a good number i have been in the 20 s often.
you have dozens of regional jets all around your airplane and i always wonder
where and why they are taxiing around in a real strange order.

my home airport is fra ,the worst is probably 3 or 4 ac in front of you
in the morning and afternoon rush hours.

yes i have been to iad and jfk and atl.

but nothing beats phl in taxi and delay times.

the new a terminal extension is really spacious and modern.the us airways club there is new and up to perfect standards.
but as soon as the aircraft gets pushed back the problems start.

the old a,b,c terminal **gates** are looking like the 1960 s.rund down and dirty and not enough gate room to support anything bigger than a emb 170.
not to mention an a 321 or b757.

if it would not be for star alliance i would not connect in phl at all.

there is no jet traffic on united to pit,cvg or cle from **iad**.

i personally hate to go on prop planes.

as long as philly is not correcting and or rebuilding its apron traffic problems
this airport and its major carrier us airways will go down with flying flags.

concerning us airways i hardly ever had ground traffic delays in pit , phx ,
not even in las, or san.

for my next trip on monday i will use **ord**and then ua to cvg.

longer flight time but no problems with phl aiport.

comments please . is it the airport ***phl***and its traffic and employees
or is it us airways.:confused:

but getting airborne is the problems.
***taxi times are killing this airport***.
if you are beeing told by the fc that you are number 18 for take off.
this is even a good number i have been in the 20 s often.
you have dozens of regional jets all around your airplane and i always wonder
where and why they are taxiing around in a real strange order.

my home airport is fra ,the worst is probably 3 or 4 ac in front of you
in the morning and afternoon rush hours.

yes i have been to iad and jfk and atl.

but nothing beats phl in taxi and delay times.I gather you have not been to EWR on regionals...understand that a *lot* of people are complaining, although I am always on intercontinentals, so usually no problem...

While taxi times are a huge issue and affect all airlines, they aren't the only problem at PHL. I recently flew WN there and my bags were on the belt before I got there. Has that ever happened with US?

While taxi times are a huge issue and affect all airlines, they aren't the only problem at PHL. I recently flew WN there and my bags were on the belt before I got there. Has that ever happened with US?

It actually happened for about 1 month.....somewhere in the January/early February time frame if my memory serves me correctly.
At that point, there were several times when my bag was waiting when I arrived in baggage claim.
Sadly, this did not last...and it is back to the normal 45 minute+wait...

I'm running out of US hubs to avoid...

I added CLT to my 2nd slot after PHL.

Unfortunately, I can't get to many places via PIT on the East Coast.

I'm safe on the west coast via PHX at least.....

One more try via CLT, then I'm done.

I agree, while FRA is super busy, they don't see the stuff PHL does. I blame the government actually for the JFK,LGA,EWR,PHL disaster....

I flew PIT-PHL-BWI in March. Got to PHL on time, waited about 10 or 15 minutes for someone to move the jetway. Left the gate around 10:10am, did not takeoff until close to 11:00, there were about 15 or 20 planes ahead of us. It was a bright, sunny morning, so weather was not a factor. All this talk about the economics of PIT vs PHL, maybe PHL is cheaper to run but these PHL problems are going to be the downfall of US.

I stopped connecting in PHL 4 years ago after 1 evening being #67 to take off, flight was about 3 hours late. Any trip I couldn't do nonstop from PIT, I flew United through ORD with much better results, and some nonstops on Midwest. A couple recent trips through DCA have been equally as horrible and I think the airport staff there have surpassed PHL at rudeness and lack of customer service.

I always liked CLT and never minded north/south connections there. My last 2 trips through there were horrible (actually felt like I was in PHL) so now CLT is ready to fall off the list of my places I'm willing to connect. CLT was never like this before, and even in its heyday, neither was PIT. Future trips south (when not on FF awards) will most likely go to DL.

I do have to say though that most of my current destinations I'm getting nonstops on Express (Republic, TransStates) and have not had a delay in the last few months (knocking on wood), staff has been pleasant and the trips uneventful. Only problem is they are cutting back frequency so I invision possible connections in the future. Those will be either DL or UA. As Alphaguy said....I'm running out of US hubs to avoid.

I just have to wonder how long it will be before the bottom falls out, something is going to seriously break here. I wonder why someone hasn't done some independent study on this, and researched how this impacts future business and finances when you subject your customers to treatment like this in the hubs. I'm surprised some number cruncher hasn't put this onto an excel spreadsheet and hand delivered it to US' BOD. Maybe that's what it would take.

At that point, there were several times when my bag was waiting when I arrived in baggage claim.
Sadly, this did not last...and it is back to the normal 45 minute+wait...Hey, at least you guys are getting your bags!

I connected from 2 US flights ex-EWR, and US couldn't do a US to LH baggage transfer in time, so my bags missing for 1-2 days!

Now, today, for the last 2 times I have flown on SAS, they have managed to misconnect/seriously screw up, and not deliver my suitcases when I arrived! :td:

PHL in general is just bad. Right now, they're doing some work on one of the runways, so it's even worse than usual. But, the queue is almost always >>20 planes, regardless of whether you're flying out on USAir or not.

I've just grown to accept that most airlines will overrun the 30 minutes or so they bake into the schedule, and still be late, when you're flying out of PHL. It's like the morning commute - I don't let it stress me, I just accept it as a fact of life. It keeps me sane...

I would agree that PHL is just awful - for every ariline. CLT got bad after cutover, but I feel it has improved and is improving again. Hopefully soon, it will be back to what it was before all of this. My theory is that PHL is bad because of its proximity to NYC and Washington DC - two big areas and no easy escape route for air traffic and that causes delays. I don't know why WN wants to go there, it doesn't seem to fit their model but then again, WN is going through some changes.

I blame US, however, for problems in CLT. PHL had the benefit of being a HP city prior to res cutover, so there were several HP employees there already to help with cutover issues so it wasn't as big as impact as it has been for CLT where there were no HP employees on hand, nor a chance for them to practice with the new system beforehand. As a result, CLT was hammered by it. It is getting better, IMHO, but not nearly as good as it was a short while ago.

PHL baggage is a joke - I hear that the airline is spending tons of dough to fix it, but it is still just a pathetic situation. Hopefully with the new IAM contract appearing to move forward, morale will improve there a bit and they'll get something fixed...