CPRich

Did you miss post #11 in this thread? They are on 7 of the 9 "Worst 10" lists, by category. The only company that made more Top 10 Worst lists is now in liquidation. They are tied with 2 other companies for the 7/9 distinction. I'd say they are pretty close to "dead last" on the overall list.

EDIT: OK, to be more accurate, let's look at the actual Overall Score for all 689 companies on the list. USAirways is 684th of 689. That's 99th+ percentile. We may have different definitions, but I wouldn't call that a "long-shot" from worst.

I found it interesting that in the category of "financial soundness" they finished one slot worse than a competitor in my industry that declared bankruptcy two weeks ago.

honeytoes

Personally, this tickles me. If everyone sees that US is last, then they won't fly US. (Well, the Kettles still might be lured by low fares, but they won't buy F.) That means I keep riding the free UG train. I haven't missed one yet this year. ^

I am not a picky person when it comes to flying, so US is fine by me. I can't miss what I never had...and I am fine with the way US is.

Huzzah!

CPRich

I suspect that USAirways management isn't too worried that its target clientele will be reading Fortune magazine.

Art234

While I can't comment on the methodology of the survey, I can say that I agree with Van and Flight 62--from a product perspective, there is just no comparison.

I think the bigger issue, however, has to do with the respective companies' attitudes toward their customers and employees.

While CO's CEO is a true leader, and always goes out of his way to praise his employees and listen to his customers, Mr. Parker and his sidekick Mr. Kirby have been quoted repeatedly in "town hall" meetings with employees making disparaging remarks about their highest level of elites. Their employee relations record speaks for itself.

CO not only listens to its customers, it acts on customer suggestions or complaints as appropriate. CO management also takes responsibility and admits when they make mistakes....something US would never do--they always blame external forces for their bad decisions.

CO made some changes to One Pass which were unpopular-they listened to us and modified the changes within weeks. They said they heard us loud and clear, and reversed many of the changes.

US made some changes to DM and instituted a new assault on customers (ala carte beverages) back in August-September. It took MONTHS to get them to reconsider, and there was NO admission that PERHAPS they had been wrong.

The fundamental difference here is that while CO considers its employees and customers its most vital assets, US considers its employees and customers liabilities-unfortunately despite what US SAYS, action speaks louder than words.

I could go on and on but I think you all get it....bottom line I think the survey is RIGHT ON.

brobab

I hate to interupt a good session of invective release, but why does everyone love to hate US? Now, I myself have joined the ..... fest a time or two when I feel that my loyalty or status have been maligned in some way, (devaluing bonus miles, devaluing CP, etc.) - but amazingly, of all the things that I think they got wrong... they fixed almost all of them. Agreed, travel today is not what it used to be but we can't go back in time. Let's go all the way back to de-regulation to see how that changed things, (remember Eastern - loved 'em). I am aformer CO Plat., (status match) Yes it was nice, but they did not fly, (conveniently or cheaply) where I needed to go. That's what it boils down to for me - get me where I need to go and recognize that I am on your planes 3 days a week. 98% of the time US does that for me.

mht_flyer

US might not care, but CO must though, because they just had a full page in ad in "ForbesLife" March 16 Forbes supplement -- as well as a ad by LH for LH First Class and FlexJet.... (along with ads for Fairmont Hotels, Ralph Lauren Black Label, etc)...

iahphx

Just an observation that at the same time this story ran in Fortune, a story in BusinessWeek noted how LCC has "rewritten the book" on effective accident management after the flight 1549 accident. No one is particularly praising CO's handling of its two recent accidents (nor should they be, particularly the Colgan crash).

That said, US is no CO, and I say that as a CO platinum. But with the possible exception of DL, nobody is providing any "special" service on domestic USA flights these days. It's very generic. US's generic service is on-time, which is pretty much all anybody could really hope for these days. I'd like to see a better US FC product, but since I'm not paying for it (and hardly anyone else is, either), it's not hard to understand why it is not a priority.

spin88

me thinks US took out about 50% of its F seats and all of its service. I'd rather fly half of the time in F on UA and half in e+ than run the upgrade lottery and get bad service to boot. US reminds me of TWA, only TWA was trying to keep its elites...

I'm not sure what the hook up will be, but NW had comp upgrades with CO. I flew about 40% of my flights on NW, almost always got upgraded. Yes, service levels sucked (almost as bad as US F), poor food, uncomfortable seats in F (especially the 752s), no IFE. But their hubs (DTW and MSP) are great, best airports to connect in, and they were usually on time.

As a result of the hook up, CO was a national carrier, and one that you could chose if you were not in a CO hub and still expect a lot of upgrades (I was scoring about 95% on NW back in 2002-4).

Yes, I agree UA service levels (especially with e+) are higher, but I don't think that UA will give either e+ access or upgrades to CO elites. Its going to be a shock to take UA in coach to try to cover large parts of the US (entire upper midwest, West, Rocky Mountains) and the Pacific, when they used to get F on NW. Ultimately I think its going to cause a bunch of folks in secondary markets to think about going with DL - which quite impresses me - UA or AA rather than CO.

CO is just not the same without Gordon.

planeluvr

I fly both UA and US. US gets the flights up and down the seaboard, so I do not care if I get F or not (Lots of times not even available) and use UA for all my long haul flights and use my SWU, CR1 and E500 to upgrade. If I do not get upgraded for my long haul, I still have E+.

ClueByFour

Businessweek is not taking history into their accounting.

US (East), if you will recall, had a string of accidents in the late 1980s and early-mid 1990s. The "book," such as it was, was rewritten by the East side due to actual, hands on experience. It has been in place since.

To suggest it's recent is either ignoring history or simple ignorance, really. US had pretty good response to the Beech crash in CLT, but nobody noticed it because it was only 19 people and not on the Hudson.

The other issue here is that US had the fortune of a very good pilot producing a very good outcome. CO did okay in Denver, but the Colgon thing was ugly because people perished.

But you really can't credit Tempe with the accident response. They inherited it.