US AIRWAYS FAN

http://www.usairways.com/about/press/nw_04_1225.htm



US AIRWAYS SPECIAL BULLETIN REGARDING HOLIDAY TRAVEL
We sincerely apologize for the operational disruptions that have impacted holiday travel. Our efforts to recover from the severe weather on Thursday were complicated when some of our employees chose to call in sick at record numbers over the weekend. We are embarrassed by the situation, especially given the holidays and how important travel is to our customers at this time of the year.

We're addressing this by operating extra flights to transport customer's baggage to Charlotte where we have additional staff. We have also deployed additional managers to Philadelphia to handle baggage, and qualified managers are working as Flight Attendants. Other frontline employees are volunteering to work on their day off to help resolve our staffing issues.

Please be advised that our call centers are experiencing long waits for customers to get through, especially regarding baggage. Customers will be contacted by our delivery companies once they have the customer's bags in hand, to coordinate delivery.

We have kept officials at the Transportation Department briefed regarding the situation and our
efforts to help our customers.

CPRich

Lots of discussion on usaviation.com. Mostly of the "it's management's fault that people called in sick" variety.

thelostshark

How badly will this hurt them in their bid to avoid liquidation? tls

BearX220

It's another big, shiny, nine-inch nail in their coffin. The airline's total incompetence has become a national press story -- and the subject of inquiries by the U.S. Department of Transportation:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...s/lost_luggage

In the short term, who's going to gamble on US for dicretionary travel after this? And the short term is all they've got.

swdcflyer

Keep in mind I'm a USAirways fan & generally support labor actions where people aren't hurt (ie: it is made public, sales drop, point is made with minimal damage to customers).

BUT

After today, I hope that the employees that called in sick today have the pleasure of having next Christmas off with no pay.

My wife's flight was cancelled this morning in CLT due to lack of crew she was just connecting there from DTW. There was no one in the terminal that would help the stranded passengers, you couldn't get through to the 800#, and after she wasn't able to get on standby to AUA on the last flight of the day she was directed to go out front. After 5+ hours (I'm not kidding) in line, she was rebooked to ATL tonight, put up in a Red Roof Inn, then ATL to MIA on AA tomorrow, then 5 hrs. in MIA, then finally AUA by 9:30pm on AA (a day and a half past her original arrival).

MERRY CHRISTMAS faithful USAirways customers!

DallaStarwooDelta

DallaStarwooDelta

I hope every passsenger who flies from today forward greets every US Air employee as follows:

Hi, thanks for showing up for work today. Because of you, your peers, or your suboridnates I am late, missed, had to cancel, (insert your own event) and I will not cry a tear when you are unemployed. Your selfish attitude lost you your biggest supporter, me, your customer. Without me you are nothing and that was a choice YOU made.

fazak38

fazak38

Bad weather advisory for atl 12/26/04 expecting freezing rain snow mix hope wife gets out of atl.

chicagorich

Well--I am certainly one of those customers ready to say bye bye--I am in the process of requesting a credit at usairways.com for a last minute first class ticket that I purchased to visit PIT for a couple of days over Christmas.

But it was not meant to be with all the sickouts, missing bags, cancelled flights, etc...

What exactly is US in business for these days anyway? They can't argue it is to transport pax safely and with a minimum amount of hassle to their destinations, not after the past couple of days.

I don't hear any horror stories from Southwest about weather problems or sick outs or the need to fly empty planes full of baggage to try and rectify an untenable situation......

Sad...

..

jimcfsus

Yeah, they just get the drunks and old ladies who fall asleep at the gate... that is if you believe what is shown on the A&E show "Airline".

sheepherder

I can see the baggage handlers and mechanics doing an Eastern Airlines
deja view. However the FA's union, even Teddy have agreed to necessary
give backs.

The real point IMHO is PHL. Shipping baggage to CLT to be resent? 75 minute waits for gates?

Why did SWA ever think of going there? Does anybody have the statistics
on their PHL flites over the last couple of days?

Maybe USAir should just subcontract out the baggage handling to SWA.

chicagorich

I have only watched that show a couple of times, but it does seem like they have a high number of alcohol related confrontations. I do think that some of that is for the consumption of the viewing audience though.

At least SW is doing a good job of keeping them off the planes. With the legacy carriers, the drunk would probably make it through all the security checks and boarding and half way through the flight, the crew would finally figure out the guy was drunk. Time to divert the plane to some god forsaken airport (along with the sober pax) to dump the drunk into local law enforcements lap. Maybe the pax will reach their original destination somewhere within the same week as originally scheduled...

..

evprincess

I am an employee of USAirways and have been for over 4 years. In those 4 years, I have had bronchitis, and the flu and through that have used 1 sick day. The only reason I didn't was because they told me to stay home for fear of catching the flu, I kept calling to see if they needed me to come in. Most people that work for USAirways came to work today. Believe me, I understand your frustration, it is frustrating for us trying to comprehend why bags have yet to come. ALso on rebooking, I will take as long as I have to in order to find you a way to get where you need to go as soon as possible. Luckily the latest it has ever taken is the next day. Especially during the holidays I want people to be able to spend time with their families. I work hard as does everyone else I work with. So because of a few bad apples, of which is not me or my coworker, you are going to thank me for a selfish attitude I do not possess? You are going to wish unemployment on those of us that do what we can? I would never ever wish unemployment on a group that consists of over 30,000. Okay you didn't wish it, you just wouldn't give a thought to us. I just want to say I appreciate that. Also to all those that can't wait for us to liquidate because they haven't yet received their luggage, thank you also. I try not to usually take things personally but this I did. I am working/have worked every holiday and even my birthday this year, and haven't used a sick day. So to ask people to be that disrespectful, I take offense. Most of us are trying and we do appreciate our passengers, and realize without you we have no jobs.

StSebastian

I will never wish unemployment on a company or industry, especially when my family has a furloughed airline employee. Still, whatever happened is making US look really bad in the press today. The saving grace is that a Delta Express carrier had to shut down for the day and had no flights today, and that became the leading story on my newscast.