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Another example of US cheap...

US Airways Sees Low Internet Usage - Another example of the high cost of cheap

Some palpable numbers: Air Transport World quotes US Airways president saying that usage averages below 5 percent of passengers on flights, and breakeven is above 20 percent. They only have the service on about 50 planes (their Airbus A321s), which lack power outlets. By only covering part of their fleet, as opposed to Delta which has full coverage on mainline planes, they may undermine patterns of usage that build up over time.
 
US Airways Sees Low Internet Usage - Another example of the high cost of cheap

Some palpable numbers: Air Transport World quotes US Airways president saying that usage averages below 5 percent of passengers on flights, and breakeven is above 20 percent. They only have the service on about 50 planes (their Airbus A321s), which lack power outlets. By only covering part of their fleet, as opposed to Delta which has full coverage on mainline planes, they may undermine patterns of usage that build up over time.

While I agree that the limited availability does hurt the usage rate, US does clearly advertise Gogo service on those flights which have it.

I have now flown on 5 US flights with wifi. The first flight was a redeye, so I would not have paid for wifi even if US had power ports. The second and third flights were CLT-SJU-CLT, and Gogo was not even available for most of the flight. No discount, of course, so forget it. The fourth flight was after I had just debarked from a 7-dayk cruise, where my company's firewall would not allow me to access the cruise ship's internet. I bought US's wifi out of desperation, and used it for about 2 hours, until my battery died. The last flight was during a free promo last month, so I took advantage. I would not have bought it had it not been free simply because of the lack of power ports. And, of course, the usage rate on this particular flight was WELL over 5%, which I presume is what made the wifi so much slower than the previous flight where I purchased it.

20% usage rate (if you only include actual purchases) from me.
 
That fits what I said - the FAA just approved use of tablet type devices within the last 2-3 weeks. Since the IPod was mentioned earlier, I assumed US has a tablet type device. If that's wrong I apologize and retract what I said (see- some people can do that).

Jim

If a "tablet type device" means a screen with no keyboard, then what USAirways has is a tablet type device. It's not an iPad; that would be way to elegant and useful for USAirways pilots to have available. The USAirways model is simply a screen on top of a big brick designed: to get in the way of opening the window, to interfere with moving the armrest up and down, to bruise your forearm while steering the aircraft (captains only,) to preclude having a place to clip a note of any sort, and to prevent a ready place to write things on that note that can no longer be clipped anywhere convenient to one's pencil.
 
If a "tablet type device" means a screen with no keyboard, then what USAirways has is a tablet type device.

That's it - normally the keyboard is either accessed on the touch-sensitive screen or via bluetooth to a separate keyboard.

Jiim
 
The only area in which this management team innovates is which new fees to charge that the other airlines wouldn't think of......

That said, I do think they are beginning to get the message that they have to treat customers as assets not liabilities...now if only they could come to the same realization with regard to employees......

My BEST to you all...

Still charging fees to redeem frequent flyer miles.Really shows how much they value their best customers.I always have to remind flyers,US awards are not free!
 
Still can't get their website to work correctly on checking flight status. Other night in CLT with storm rolling through, tried to check a couple of flights. Status just came up as blank. Flights had vanished I guess?!?!?! Please can't they get this to work right....

but hey, we get more posters about how important it is to update flight status and such to make our passengers trips more informed. Ahhhh....but the pieces that show the passenger that information is broken, so what's it matter?
 
Wow, really grabbing at straws in an attempt to make the executive suite look like imbeciles.

"It was unintentional error,"
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/morning_call/2011/04/us-airways-frequent-flyer-mix-up.html
US Airways' frequent flier mix-up
Found itself in a bit of a mixup last week. The Tempe-based airline offered extra miles to some of its frequent fliers, but then said that was a mistake and rescinded the offer, according to WBTV.com in Charlotte, N.C.

http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=14422083

http://www.timesonline.com/news/business/us-airways-flubs-online-air-miles-offer-to-customers/article_c3cccfae-6559-11e0-9e93-001a4bcf6878.html


"Uh, whoops - US Airways had sent the message to many more customers than we had intended and we aren't going to honor that pledge."
 
:angry: How cheap can you get.When united several years ago listed fares to asia at some really low fares,some customers bought them and then united said they would not honor those tickets.When the media ran the story,UA quickly reversed its position and did the right thing and honored the tickets.Here US could have got some good free pr but chose to be narrow minded.A 1000 miles added to frequent flyer accounts costs them nothing,but could have left some good will among its customers.Reminds me when US was the only carrier charging for water for a while.
 
1,000 miles times the millions of e-mails they sent out does cost them quite a bit on their balance sheet. However, spread across millions of accounts in thousand-mile increments, the reality is that it costs them very little in hard dollars.

Now, if US were really innovative, they would have sought a retail partner to underwrite the cost of doling out millions and millions of miles! :lol:
 

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