While nobody would "like" to hear this announcement, especially if your waiting for baggage, I am not surprised that something like this happened. Probably other either direct or indirect things like this have happened, and have just not made it in to the news. I have noticed a handful (seems more than normal) flights cancelled due to "no crew available" since the 2nd BK filing. I have read news reports about people calling in sick, or doing things by-the-book which can delay operations.

Of course no union leader is going to be quoted in the newspaper condoning this activity, they could be fined or possibly imprisoned if they are found to be instigating sick outs or other unrest among labor groups.

I have a neighbor that works at the airport, and they report moral very low at US, and that the employees are just wating for the day to come when they are told they have no job/to clean out their locker.

I am really frankly surprised that the US Airways operation is still running more or less in tact without major and fundamental issues going wrong like this one that we read about in PHL or worse. This kind of thing is always difficult at a company as the Inquirer pointed out, and I don't think US had particularly good labor relations which might have softened the blow slightly. Also the pay cut was across the board for an employee making $17,000 or $50,000.

Before we say the person should be fired, we should ask ourselves some questions such as:
Q: Have I ever personally lost 20% of my pay in a job?
Q: If I lost 21% of my pay, plus other previous pay cuts, plus reductions in benefits, plus work rule changes, plus no more job security, would I be able to sustain something like a high standard and provide a similar quality of

Of course all of you ar technically correct in a textbook sense, e.g. you should not see degridations in any part of the customer experience as a result of either the BK or the pay cuts. That is what the web site says too. But you always have to include those pesky "human factors" "human nature" factor in to any such equation. So while it looks good on paper, you might have a company of demoralized employees that will cause you operational problems or even might deliberately inhibit production because of deep seeded resentment probably directed at perceived high paying cushy management jobs.

Once you have some standard of living or something then it is very difficult to go back. If you have never had it, then it is easier. Like if you've always made $.50 a day, then you aren't going to miss making $50,000 a year.

This is one reason perhaps why Southwest or JetBlue employees are said to be happy, etc. Perhaps many of them never worked for an old line legacy carrier that had better benefits, pay, and work rules. So they don't miss it because they didn't have it.

I think in any legacy airline for a long time to come you are going to have employees and customers alike wishing for the "good old days," and to some extent this may lower productivity.

I have noticed in companys I've worked for with downsizing, even well after the downsizing, people sit around and lament about the prior "good times" and the current "how bad things are." Again, they have something to miss, where as someone brand new off the street cannot so easily miss some benefit or perk they never had.