deelmakur

Wow, talk about an old thread. Even in it's heyday, US never had much presence on the West Coast. Fare sales were often skewed to travelers originating out there, and not offered to easterners. Heavy demand was always greater late week, with little pressure for upgrades on Mondays, for example. In my case, I still do roughly 10 RT flights a year from the east to Seattle, where I keep a home (and office). With Alaska now offering service from Newark and Miami, I have moved all that business to them. As an MVP Gold, they treat me very well. In addition to guaranteed upgrades if you pay an extra few bucks, decent meals on real plates, with glassware and metal utensils, new planes (737-700/800/900), individual IFE units, no change fees for elites, and a FF plan that has NW, CO, AA, BA, Hawaiian, just to name a few of the partners, it's worth traveling to airports which add 20 or 30 minutes to the trip. Actually, the past few years' Freddies say it all.

eddconboy

I am bi-coastal schlub going from SFO-PHL. For three and a half years I was doing this commute about 25 times a year. For the last six months I am down to once a month (Yeah!!) Probably back to my old schedule in the second half of the year, though. Since my flights always originate from SFO, I don't have to worry about the equipment arriving on a tight schedule. In all this time I have only been late arriving in PHL once (massive snow storm; flight diverted to Hartford for a few hours). Oddly enough, I have never had a late arrival into SFO on my return from PHL. That's about a hundred times. Go figure.

wahooflyer

I should end up doing at least 20 round trips to LAX this year from DCA, IAD, CHO or RIC, and as I've said in numerous other threads, I generally won't fly US on transcon routes anymore because of the inferior meal service and the lack of a club at LAX's chaotic Terminal 1. The only time I'd consider flying US to LAX is if the fare is at least $200 less than AA (which hasn't happened in a few months now).

Most of my transcon flights now go to American Airlines, which flies IAD-LAX nonstop with a First Class cabin that's more deserving of the First Class name. I have never missed an upgrade I've requested on these flights (except for redeyes, which I don't upgrade) and the level of service in F is miles ahead of US Airways. I do have to pay for some upgrades, at $25 per 500 miles = $125 per transcon leg, but the upgrade is well worth it on AA.

One of the reasons I like US is that it has the most flights out of the airport closest to my home (CHO) but similar to deelmakur's situation with HPN vs. EWR, it ends up taking about the same amount of time for me to drive to IAD and fly nonstop to LAX as it does to fly out of CHO and connect in Charlotte on my way to LA. Plus, last-minute fares are considerably lower out of IAD due to all the low-cost carrier competition there.

I am planning to move to Los Angeles later this year, which will cut down on a lot of my travel. I will easily requalify for Chairman's this year with my East Coast travel alone (thanks to 40,000 rollover miles from last year and some bonuses from the 20K promo) but if US is still around in 2007 it's unlikely that I'll fly them enough to qualify for any Preferred level, being based out of LAX.

olympicnut

I used to be loyal to PSA, and I probably would have been loyal to US had they STAYED HERE! Not that I'm still bitter or anything

SS255

I continue to fly US despite all of the service cutbacks, because I do think they have the best frontline people. However, I am moving more of my transcon business to UA because of the LAX club closure, but I will continue to earn miles on US through the end of the year. Not sure yet what I'll be doing in '06.

FCYTravis

Dragging this thread back to the top to comment on this... sure they did. Right after they bought PSA they had the best West Coast route network of any American airline. I remember flying the old PSA/US after the merger.

Then they systematically dismantled it and went back to being an East Coast regional with a few token transcons. After that, as a Northern California resident, I never had a reason to fly US Airways again until the HP merger this year.

Wave1

Amazing foresight for Deelmakur suggesting the America West partnership four years ago. I guess that is why he's a deelmakur

I regularly hop back and forth betwen PIT and LA living between the two cities, and as the non-stops dwindle (soon to drop down to 1X daily apparently) so does my interest in US. I have been flying since Allegheny in the mid 70's. I am exploring my options now- if I have to connect then US is no longer much different from any other airline and with the devaluation of the FF program (the Golds get hit hard) I am looking at where I can get the most bang for my BIS mile.

CO and U look the best right now, but I haven't written off US. I still like CLT and the Airbii on the US transcons, though first is what we know it to be. The AM WEST routes from LAX create some brand spaking new route opportunities and frequencies.

LAX is very well served by U and I like the DEN hub. CO has always been a good experience, but lots of RJs from PIT and IAH is a little out of the way. If NW got some newer AC that would help (which seems to be the direction they are headed). AA is all RJ to PIT now and Delta involves Atlanta

KevAZ

Know that I will incur some flames here, but since you asked an open question, I will answer with an open mind.

I had zero experience with US until '04. Beginning in Jan '04, I was spending a lot of time in CLT with a client and couldn't spare the hub time with AA, so went with US direct PHX/CLT whenever it was open.

My impressions were that the planes were generally run down, several reminded me of Pan Am weeks before they went belly up. However, several flights were on <5 yr old metal. All in all, I'd give them a 4 out of 10.

The PHX TA and GA were nice, I would give them an 8 out of 10.

The CLT TSA drill was a flustercluck but not US' problem.

The US TA and GA at CLT were much less helpful than the AA or UA people that I met through the four month period when I was stuck going with them due to sold out US flights. Not nasty - CLT folks are nice to begin with, but obviously were not going to help me as a weekly traveller. I will give them a 4 out of 10.

Here's the flaming part........ I was upgraded often because I was still a UA1K at the time and I found many of the US travelers in F to be loud, rude and demanding. Not all of them, but enough to cause me to ask several of them point blank what in H was their problem? I've been flying F and J for 20+ years and I've never encountered more rude people than I did last year on US. My wife flies to PHL regularly on HP and she said she's run into the same attitude on those flights with people stating that they are "US Air top flight customers!"

As a result of the recent FF negative changes and our experience with US customers in F (which we can only guess as CP upgrades), we've both moved all of our travel to AA domestically.

Sorry, but there are some real jerks flying US and my wife and I have both been unfortunately stuck next to them. Visualize a mobile phone user next to you in mid-flight and that's the way we think of US flyers based on our experiences over the past couple of years.

Parting shot - we realize that this must be a very small minority of US customers. However, after living in five countries & working in 112, we haven't met a group of people that are more rude than that small group we got stuck with over the past two years from US.