A Good Start

[USA320Pilot]

A Good Start

ARLINGTON (theHub.com) - US Airways Shuttle performance is off to a good start this month, with above-goal departure performance achieved on four out of five days, and above-goal arrival performance achieved during the first five days of May.

Shuttle operations exceeded all performance measurements on May 5, with an on-time fleet launch performance of 100 percent. In addition to getting all originating flights out on time, Shuttle exceeded goal in both on-time departures and flights departing within five minutes of schedule, at 90.4 percent and 91.5 percent, respectively.

LaGuardia led the Shuttle stations in on-time departures, achieving 96.9 percent. Employees in Washington, LaGuardia and Boston were All Together. On Time. They operated all scheduled Shuttle flights, for a 100 percent completion factor. These collective efforts resulted in 95.7 percent of all Shuttle customers arriving to their destinations on time.

USA320Pilot comments: Yesterday the New York to Boston and New York to Washington Shuttles had 100% load factors for the 3:00 pm, 4:00 pm, 5:00 pm, 6:00 pm, and then the 7:00 pm departures. Those 10 flights carried 1,200 passengers. US Airways is taking advantage of Acela's problems and Station Management believes the airline will permanently take traffic away from Amtrak.

Regards,

USA320Pilot

 

[hharotz]

A Good Start

ARLINGTON (theHub.com) - US Airways Shuttle performance is off to a good start this month, with above-goal departure performance achieved on four out of five days, and above-goal arrival performance achieved during the first five days of May.

Shuttle operations exceeded all performance measurements on May 5, with an on-time fleet launch performance of 100 percent. In addition to getting all originating flights out on time, Shuttle exceeded goal in both on-time departures and flights departing within five minutes of schedule, at 90.4 percent and 91.5 percent, respectively.

LaGuardia led the Shuttle stations in on-time departures, achieving 96.9 percent. Employees in Washington, LaGuardia and Boston were All Together. On Time. They operated all scheduled Shuttle flights, for a 100 percent completion factor. These collective efforts resulted in 95.7 percent of all Shuttle customers arriving to their destinations on time.

USA320Pilot comments: Yesterday the New York to Boston and New York to Washington Shuttles had 100% load factors for the 3:00 pm, 4:00 pm, 5:00 pm, 6:00 pm, and then the 7:00 pm departures. Those 10 flights carried 1,200 passengers. US Airways is taking advantage of Acela's problems and Station Management believes the airline will permanently take traffic away from Amtrak.

Regards,

USA320Pilot

[post="267238"][/post]​

Why haven't we swapped-out the 319s for 320s on the shuttle routes yet? Seems like we could use the extra lift doing services which are actually profitable....

 

[WestCoastGuy]

A GOOD START



Crellin, Glass, Paladini......all getting booted out the door at the same time....

 

[coolflyingfool]

Could the continued influx of passengers at higher revenue levels be enough to help US really turn the corner? Acela going down appears to be an absolute Godsend for US. Thousand of extra passengers and their revenue is great news for the boys in CCY. Just my thoughts.........

 

[Walmartgreeter]

Could the continued influx of passengers at higher revenue levels be enough to help US really turn the corner? Acela going down appears to be an absolute Godsend for US. Thousand of extra passengers and their revenue is great news for the boys in CCY. Just my thoughts.........

[post="267276"][/post]​

Not that I do not appreciate your optimisim....but during it's last week of operation, Eastern carried more passengers than any airline has ever carried in such a short period. Best. Greeter.

 

[PA18]

Pretty impressive stat, considering that management is doing all it can to chase the Shuttle business away.

At least one or two segments are canceled almost every day, for each city pair.

To compund that problem, the flight crews are regularly scheduled for 14-hour duty days (with the obligatory sit-arounds twice a day). So when the thunderstorms roll through Connecticut in the afternoon, many crews turn into pumpkins.

They have also begun placing Shuttle segments in the middle of regular trips. They tried this before with the DC-9 on the BOS-DCA Shuttle. It never works.

"Where's the aircraft for the 6 o'clock Boston Shuttle?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but it's still stuck in Fort Lauderdale."

"What the hell is it doing in Fort Lauderdale? I thought it was a 'Shuttle' airplane?"

And just recently, they stopped providing newspapers for the Shuttle passengers, at least in Boston. Why? According to a customer service agent, "Because the employees were taking them. They've been watching."

It's encouraging to know that a management that can lose two hundred million in a quarter when practically every flight is full is focused on the real issues -- making sure the embattled employees aren't able to make off with a 50-cent newspaper.

Amtrak is handing them this business on a silver platter. And they treating it as if it were a live grenade.

 

[luvthe9]

A GOOD START
Crellin, Glass, Paladini......all getting booted out the door at the same time....

[post="267273"][/post]​

If true that would be a great employee morale booster

 

[Doc]

And just recently, they stopped providing newspapers for the Shuttle passengers, at least in Boston. Why? According to a customer service agent, "Because the employees were taking them. They've been watching."

It's encouraging to know that a management that can lose two hundred million in a quarter when practically every flight is full is focused on the real issues -- making sure the embattled employees aren't able to make off with a 50-cent newspaper.

Amtrak is handing them this business on a silver platter. And they treating it as if it were a live grenade.

[post="267313"][/post]​

[/quote]


Although I agree with you about shuttle service the news papers were thousands of dollars per month. I think it was a bad move to take them away but in Boston massport has there hands in your pocket even with the coffee they got a piece of the action I think that is why they are gone in Boston.

You can run all the flights on time 100% but if you agents hate what there job has become and have no where to go right now the customer suffers. I see disgruntled employees treat our customers like dirt because they are depressed and tired and simply don’t care.

If nothing is done for moral in this employee group who are face to face with our bread and butter every day I see no future for USAirways. Passengers will go else where for service as well as price.

Just my humble opinion

 

[LGA / 037]

Why haven't we swapped-out the 319s for 320s on the shuttle routes yet? Seems like we could use the extra lift doing services which are actually profitable....

[post="267241"][/post]​

Thats a good point and LGA asked about that. Its alot harder to just start rotating A320's in to the schedule. The A320's are being used in quite lucrative markets right now. (Or whats left of those markets ) After listening to OCC's points it might make more sense for a couple extra sections during the peak hours between the BOS/LGA/DCA triangle. Overall, I have been told the overall Shuttle loads have shot up almost 15% since Acela's problems. On the front line ticket counter alot of customers have told the agents they are flying US because of Acela. This I think would be a good time to bring back some of the amenities we have taken away due to the cutting cost. Its obvious reading comments from Delta's Pilot rep meeting a month ago US has the superior aircraft (A319 vs 738 ) and a much user friendlier terminal. Average TSA wait times are only 5 mins.....thats right only 5 minutes as compared to the Marine Air terminals 15 !

 

[MarkMyWords]

A couple observations regarding the shuttle operation.

First, adding the 320's to the shuttle flying would be a great idea, but it is very difficult to do on short notice. All of the A320's are overwater equipped and many do overwater flying. Taking them off those routes would mean finding a way to route A319-OW aircraft to fly those missions. Our overwater fleet is stretched very thin as it is, especially on the weekends. Add to the mix the already high bookings on most of the A320 flying and you would be robbing peter to pay paul.

In line with what many have said about the ammenities associated with Shuttle - they should only be brought back if they expect them to be provided consistently over the long term. Don't try to entice and bribe people to leave the train for flying and then take the ammenities away again in a month. Consistency is one of the biggest problems we have. The only thing we are consistent at is being inconsistent.

Marketing / Sales should be pulling out all the stops in DCA, BOS and LGA. There should be sales associates there signing people up for Dividend Miles. Promoting the positives of flying the US Airways shuttle versus the train.

As for the comments by PA18. Bud you are spot on in your observations. Due to MTC issues we were having a difficult time completing 100% of the flying. Inevitably there would be a plane broke in one of the shuttle stations that would cause a cancellation. If it wasn't MTC then there were crew issues. I can't begin to tell you how many times the first round trip of the day was cancelled due to lack of cockpit crews. Either someone was unable to commute, sicked the trip, or there was no coverage. Very frustrating, espcially when all three stations are crew bases.

PA18 also commented that the crews often have 14 hour duty days and 2-3 hour productivity breaks once or twice a day. Once again, spot on. When the schedule changed in Feb, the shuttle flying was rearranged to allow for less airplanes to be dedicated to the shuttle fleet. This increased the aircraft productivity and reduced turn time. Previously, airplanes flew BOS-LGA-BOS-LGA-BOS. Now airplanes fly routings like BOS-LGA-DCA-BOS-DCA-LGA. Crews are still scheduled to fly the old type routings (for the most part). So instead of the crew and the airplane flying together most of the day, there are crew changes nearly every other flight leg. So we have made the fleet more productive, but we have made our crews very unproductive, hence the 14 hour duty days and 3 hour productivity breaks. Why can't the shuttle crew pairings mirror the shuttle lines of flying? If they built all the shuttle lines to mirror the airplanes, then more crews would max out closer to 8 hours of hard time before they would get close to a 12-13 hour duty day. This would give you some breathing room to absorb any ATC delays - especially in the summer with T-storms. As it is now, if you get a 1 hour delay, you run the risk of the crew running out of duty day and risk having to cancel flights.

PA18 your comments about the shuttle lines not being pure shuttle flying is also very true. This was also a problem created with the reduction in the number of MTC stations available. There are only 16-17 MTC stations in the system and all of the airplanes have mtc requirements. In order to ensure that airplanes get the work or checks done, it is necessary to break into or out of the shuttle lines in order to get the airplanes worked on. Then toss in the routing issues with the overwater sub-fleet and it is extremely difficult to keep pure shuttle lines.

Just my observations.....hopefully that makes a fuzzy picture a little clearer....

 

[Art at ISP]

Thats a good point and LGA asked about that. Its alot harder to just start rotating A320's in to the schedule. The A320's are being used in quite lucrative markets right now. (Or whats left of those markets ) After listening to OCC's points it might make more sense for a couple extra sections during the peak hours between the BOS/LGA/DCA triangle. Overall, I have been told the overall Shuttle loads have shot up almost 15% since Acela's problems. On the front line ticket counter alot of customers have told the agents they are flying US because of Acela. This I think would be a good time to bring back some of the amenities we have taken away due to the cutting cost. Its obvious reading comments from Delta's Pilot rep meeting a month ago US has the superior aircraft (A319 vs 738 ) and a much user friendlier terminal. Average TSA wait times are only 5 mins.....thats right only 5 minutes as compared to the Marine Air terminals 15 !

[post="267327"][/post]​

LGA,

The A319 is by far superior to the 733, which DL uses for 90% of their Shuttle. The 738, however, is a more versatile, and perhaps more efficient aircraft than the 319--more comparable to the 320 in fact.

 

[hharotz]

Thanks to all for the great explanations about 319/320 swaps! That answers alot of my questions....perhaps we too should have an RJ or 2 stationed in LGA to run extra sections as needed a la DL.

I agree...marketing should be out there and they should be agressive! This is really our time to shine.

For all we do wrong at US, the one thing we seem to have always done right is the Shuttle. If all of our airline ran like our Shuttle/Trans-Atlantic (330) ops we would be a fierce competitor, and rival the best in the world.

 

[USA320Pilot]

LGA/037's comments regarding the March 31 Delta LEC letter to their Council regarding the Shuttle is accurate. The Delta pilots and ALPA are furious about their operation and they consider US Airways to have s superior Shuttle product.

In regard to aircraft routings and crew pairings, the July schedule will "more" resemble the old Shuttle schedule and will be made public on May 11.

Meanwhile, US Airways' LGA terminal could be sold.

Regards,

USA320Pilot

 

[N924PS]

And what premier facility at LGA would U then be using, please?

 

[700UW]

Meanwhile, US Airways' LGA terminal could be sold.
Regards,
USA320Pilot

[post="267432"][/post]​

You can't sell something you don't own. The US Airways' LGA Terminal is leased from Continental Airlines and CO has first the first rites to take the terminal back. US can't sublease it or sell it as they do not own it.

Once again, don't let the facts get in your way.