US Airlines are the world's worst

[EyeInTheSky]

Grounded: Why America's airlines are the world's worst
Andrew Stephen

Published 16 April 2007

Print version Listen British travellers beware: the US airline industry is in a tailspin, and passenger service and staff morale are hitting rock-bottom.

Yes, I've flown on Ryanair, easyJet, Flybe and so on, and I know they can be pretty ropy. I also know British Airways loses an awful lot of bags (more than any other major European airline, I'm told). Heathrow can certainly be a disgrace.

But if anybody thinks flying to and from British airports is uniquely awful, I have news for them. In America, which boasts six of the world's biggest airlines, flying even on short-haul flights is beginning to get much, much worse - and the outlook is bleaker still. This year, airlines around the world are expected to make $3.8bn profit, with European firms accounting for $2.4bn of that and Asian-Pacific ones for most of the rest. The US airlines are forecast to lose $600m, and I expect the losses to end up being much more...

Read the rest here:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200704160029

 

[USCREW]

Andrew Stephen obviously has not flown on Aeroflot.
Also interesting...the fact that his rant was published on April the 16th.

 

[phlus2]

Andrew Stephen obviously has not flown on Aeroflot.
Also interesting...the fact that his rant was published on April the 16th.

What is it so interesting about being published on the 16th? That is the hard copy edition date - which is normal to have it dated in advance such as Time, Newsweek etc etc.? So what did I miss?

 

[N965VJ]

Here’s the real reason Stephen’s knickers are in a twist:

Despite all that I have recounted above, the British government recently granted more US airlines the right to use Heathrow, a deal worth literally billions to the American airlines but little or nothing, as far as I can see, to Britain. American airlines have always been allowed to fly from New York to Frankfurt via London, say, and pick up invaluable new passengers in London. However, in what amounts to a scandalous breach of the free-enterprise ethos that Americans are supposed to hold so dear, the reverse does not apply: if British Airways flies from London to Dallas via Boston, say, the US denies it the right to pick up lucrative additional passengers in Boston, a blatant repudiation of the free-market system that costs the British airlines (again literally) billions.

 

[EyeInTheSky]

Heathrow makes Philly look like an efficient machine. The Heathrow experience is like traveling to New Delhi, Hong Kong, and Moscow all rolled into one.

Later,
Eye

 

[PHL]

Here’s the real reason Stephen’s knickers are in a twist:

Which US airlines does he speak of that fly into the UK, pick up more passengers and transport them onward to another point in Europe?

 

[Busdrvr]

Which US airlines does he speak of that fly into the UK, pick up more passengers and transport them onward to another point in Europe?

I was wondering the same thing. I don't think that's true.

 

[BuffaloJoe]

I was wondering the same thing. I don't think that's true.

Pan Am and TWA, Years ago! I guess he dug up some of his old notes. It the paper was originally bright white and is now a yellowish Brown. Its too Old.

 

[SKY HIGH]

Grounded: Why America's airlines are the world's worst

..simple, it's been reduced to GREYHOUND with wings.

It costs Americans approximately 52 cents a mile to operate our cars with today's gas prices. Remember that, the next time you step onto a plane.


only stating opinions

 

[EMBFA]

"The airlines I have to travel on most are US Airways and United - at the moment, I have 396,812 miles in my United Mileage account - and they are probably the worst of the six giants. US Airways is the smaller of the two, but still runs nearly 4,000 daily flights serving 240 destinations in 28 countries, with a workforce of more than 37,000; but it was bankrupt from 2002 to 2005, during which it not only tried to pare costs down to the bone, but sliced off slivers of the bone itself. Previously, roughly 40 per cent of its revenue was spent on the workforce, but that has now plunged to just 17 per cent - leading to a demoralised staff who care less and provide increasingly bad service.

Countless thousands of airline staff have found their treasured pensions disappear in smoke and their pay slashed in the "reorganisations" - and they are the lucky ones who have kept their jobs. "The entire industry is in a death spiral, including this company, and I can't get us out of it. Deregulation is an abysmal failure and we have no more furniture left to burn," Bruce Lakefield, then chief executive officer of US Airways, said in 2004. The following year, Lakefield took home what, to him, was doubtless the insultingly paltry sum of $2.2m.

United, which has 56,000 employees and operates a fleet of 459 aircraft, was bankrupt from 2002 until last year - and its service went from bad to dismal. Yet Glenn Tilton, the CEO who shepherded United into bankruptcy when the entire company was valued at just $20m, nevertheless managed to take home $39.7m last year. (Don't ask me to explain this sort of financial smoke-and-mirrors, because I can't: the wretched US Airways recently bid $9.77bn for Delta, a manoeuvre I find no less baffling.)"


... haha, read us like a cheap romance novel!!!

(We fly to 28 countries? I didnt' even think we flew to 28 states! I guess all of those islands?)

 

[Be Careful What You Wish For.]

Unfortunately the US airline model is coming to a european city near you-soon. SWA has forced everyone to adjust. The paradign has shifted. You get what you pay for- what are you willing to pay for an airline ticket? The UK to Spain? I wager price is paramount. Does anyone remember Freddy Laker?
If you consider him Euro he started things down this road for better or worse.

 

[FrugalFlyerv2.0]

Andrew Stephen obviously has not flown on Aeroflot.

Or Ryanair.