dcstudent

So I was at DCA today, and the line for USAir check-in stretched in serpentine style the full length of the terminal and outside. Fortunately I was flying another carrier and only USAir seemed to have issues as I had no problems with AA

I talked to a friend who had made it through to security and he told me it took him over 3 hours to get through the line. According to him USAir had no one organizing the masses until he got right to the edge of the official line pylons.

I am back in DC after a short (very short) day trip and WRC TV 4 is showing clips of DCA (on their 4pm newscast) from this morning and is also reporting over 3 hours check-in at USAir this morning with none of the other airlines having issues.

Now I understand that there are many more people traveling, but surely USAir knew how many people it would have on its flights today...why not staff for it?

ua_to_ord

After arriving at DCA on a morning Shuttle flight, the security line to the US Airways pier was extremely congested. The TSA was also having problems with the US crowd.

CDKing

It doesnt help that US added on so many very cheap shuttle flights to and from DC

MayorMcKnife

I saw the WRC (NBC 4) clip last night. It was very unflattering to US. They singled them out and implied that they were the only airline incapable of handling the post-innauguration surge. Another example was the US spokesperson saying they were waiving change and baggage fees. The reporter said that it was really in response to US' inability to process fast enough the fees for baggage and that was the majority of delays.

US AIRWAYS FAN

You need to see the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCCItB7dC2M

tommyleo

To those people, "Hope" and "Change" applies to the U.S., but not US.

usa18dca

IMO this is very unfair to the US folks...They were not short staffed but overwhelmed with the excess capacity available that day in turn with forgive me but "Kettle" Passengers who don't know how to use a kiosk at all.

ClueByFour

It's US responsibility to plan for such an event. If they failed to have all-hands on deck, they were not "short staffed" but "stupid staffed." That's either Tempe's fault or the station manager.

And, for the love of pete, it's not the passenger's job to use a freaking kiosk. That's one of the crappier justification (blame the pax) thing I've ever heard.

coswellnc

Excuse me, but US Management knew what the load factors were going to be in DC on that day based on ticket sales. It sounds as if they were not proactive enough in staffing to handle the loads and the needs of their CUSTOMERS.

When the reservation migration happened, they sent extra staff to the major cities to handle any issues and while it wasn't perfect and lines were long, they were able to accommodate check-in. Why couldn't they have been more proactive and deployed staff from other stations to help DC check-in during this peak time? Probably because they are so lean on staffing all over the country they have no extra folks to spare. Does anyone know how BWI's operation went? Was it smoother or did they have the same problems?

The whole check-in and pay for bags process is flawed anyway. It takes too much time to collect the money for bags at check-in and for people who pay cash the process is even more of a hassle. US should allow you to declare the number of bags you will be checking at the time the reservation is made and collect the money at time of ticketing. If you exceed the number of bags at check-in you declared at the time of reservation, you would then have to pay for the extra bags at check-in. I believe most folks would pack accordingly and only check the number of bags they previously paid for. IMO collecting extra money at check-in would be rare if they went with this scenario.

Sorry...you can't blame it on the "kettles" this time.

dstan

Take-home message is the same as it always has been: "Avoid checking bags!"

I did get a kick out of the "USeless Airways" comment from the first interviewee - a new FTer in the making?!

ayeleswarapu

I was at DCA yesterday, and for once I have to say thank god that I booked US F class. With the number of shuttles leaving, it was absolute chaos. Luckily, I avoided the craziness by going to the F line, which had just 4-5 people there. On the other hand, TSA Security was a nightmare. I asked the guard which line was the F line, and he replied to me, "You're in it. They're all First Class lines. Pick one of the three and be happy." Nothing against the guard, of course, as he doesn't make the policies, but I found it a bit absurd that they got rid of the F class line, especially since breezing by security is one of DOM F's biggest perks. Then again, it still only took 20 minutes before I made my way to the US Club, but still... :P

ECOTONE

a colleague of mine was supposed to head to CMH yesterday via DCA. she got to the airport and only needed to print out her boarding pass - according to her, the kiosks weren't working...so she missed her flight and missed her meeting in CMH. she said it was by far the worst travel day she'd ever experienced (and she travels ~200k BIS miles/year).

I told her that she got what she deserved...should have printed out those BP's before hand.

USPhilly

I'm not blaming the pax here but I have to somewhat disagree that it's not the pax job to use the kiosk. The idea behind the kiosks is to eliminate the need to have so many employees working. This is the same concept of having the automated check-out at supermarkets and other stores. I don't agree with it but I think that's the idea behind it.

GalleyWench

I would be curious to see what the load factors were out of DCA the last couple of days. US operates more flights out of DCA than anyone else and I know that the majority of the flights were booked to capacity. Part of the arrival announcement into DCA, BWI and IAD the last few days has been to tell passengers to plan ahead for the days around the inaguration as ticket counters, security and baggage areas were expected to have very long lines and several of the major roadways around the airport were closed for a long period of time. Some of the HOV restrictions ran through last night. I had posted on another area of FT last week listing the road closures and how it was going to be a nightmare trying to get in and out of the airport.
I agree they should have brought in extra agents to handle the overflow, but the one major problem is that there haven't been hotel rooms available for sale in DC, Virginia or Maryland for a few months now with all of the extra people coming down for the festivities. In one respect US was actually proactive trying to plan ahead. They flew several of their ticket agents to out-lying cities on Monday and Tuesday and put them in hotels, and then flew them back into DCA first thing Tuesday and yesterday morning to assist with the crowds but apparently it wasn't enough. They were also calling all of the crew members scheduled to originiate or terminate trips from Monday night through Wednesday morning to make sure they had a plan and a backup plan to insure they were at work on time.
As for the TSA lines, that's a whole different group of employees that probably should have been beefed up as well. All I can say is thank goodness I was off.

CPRich

US sold the tickets, US knows the passenger loads, US operates the planes, US staff the people on the front line, US controls how many people are at work to run the operations. Exactly who's fault is it when US doesn't have enough US employees at the US counter to serve the US passengers who bought US tickets to fly on a US flight?

How does being overwhelmed by the capacity not equal short staffed. Sounds like the "I'm not fat, I'm just too short for my weight" argument.