Originally Posted by SlowTrekker
IIRC, in the late 90's Delta claimed to be acquiring ASA for two reasons:
1) More control over their schedule.
2) Bring ASA customer service up to Delta standards.
Delta execs seem to have at least understood the importance of fixing ASA at the time of the acquisition.
Did they abandon the cleanup plans before even trying? Maybe, maybe not.
I can personally vouch from my experiences that there was no noticable improvement in ASA post-acq.
Did they even try? I can't say for sure one way or the other like some here do.
Did they fail? Pretty much indisputably, yes.
I posted last week in OMNI that ASA had the highest rate of mishandled bags last year - and for several years. They were at (Bureau of Transportation Statistics, end of year report 2005) 17.41 bags / 1000 passengers, compared to 9.62 for US, 4.28 UA and 4.12 CO. Even DL is around those numbers. I've personally never flown ASA (or DL), but it stinks.
