Yes, Why all the sayings of when Piedmont was a great airline and US Air broke them apart... and US Air will be the atomic bomb of Delta...
Hey, Am West is running US Airways.... and we all have been left out in the cold.. haha. NOt funny but true.
Any ideals on the Good old Piedmont days... ? And Yes.. Why is US Air such a "EVIL EMPIRE"???
Ok, a little history lesson from a Piedmonster. I will try to be objective and please anyone correct me if I'm wrong.
I feel in my heart the buying of PI was 100% about making themselves less attractive to a possible TWA bid. Because of this, the US/PI merger was not well thought out. The then CEO Ed Colodny was VERY employee friendly, which was good for contracts, but bad for the realities of running a major airline.
The PI people were brought to the level of US financially, but the team in play underestimated to loyalty of the PI customer and employee. PI was a well supported Winston-Salem, NC based airline who made the customer King. You could never do enough. Infact, many of us former PI employees see many similarities with AWA.
During the planning, US management was unorganized and could not make the most simple of decisions without the press picking up on it. PI gave the full can, gave 2 bags of peanuts on every flight (except 1 with food), and had an established FC that won awards. FC was really a service to behold and was one I was proud to work. One day we were told to give the can. One day told not to. MILLIONS of dollars was wasted to add FC to USAir AND the former PSA just for US to change their livery and name logo from the fat A to the USAir. All that china and glassware bought was destroyed.
USAir made predictions that were not sound. They tranferred the PSA DC9/MD80's from the west to the east and placed the 737's to the west thinking all the pilots would follow. WRONG!! Millions wasted in training.
There was an arrogance that didn't set well with many southerners. And to be fair to our brothers and sisters up north, the PI folks acted like they owned PI and many were far from keen on those damn yankees taking over. AND, the passengers were no better. They bad mouthed US from the beginning and after a while nothing US could do could change the blunders made.
A lack of uniformity led to a horrible string of mishaps in the 90's further tarnishing the image of USAir.The company then started bleeding money for many years and was unable to convince the unions of the seriousness of the situation. We finally all started the give backs, but it was too late. We were bleeding cash. Strings of CEO's came and went, packing their wallets with money off the backs, leaving the employees skeptical, angry, and yes bitter.
We purchased the Trump Shuttle, prettied it up for a new CEO to completely screw it up.
Let us not forget the damage Stephen Wolf contributed. He prettied us up just to FAIL in his attempt to sell us to United. When thing went flat, then CEO Gangwall was asked about Plan B. The answer? And I quote.."There IS no Plan B." It was at that time all of us knew we were screwed. After that it was give back after give back with more ceo's coming and going. When we entered bk, it was day to day threats (that actually started with Wolf). Many resented the nonstop threats while the bk judge seem to allow liberal pay packages and severence packages for management.
All the cut backs and the reality that we really WERE bad off scared away customers. Things started falling apart.
I have left out many things, but the bottom line is many started to believe US Airways was a cursed airline that brought nothing positive. Everything they touched seemed to fail. With all that comes perception. We piissed off alot of customers, cities, vendors, and airport during 2 bks.
With the years of dark days, many times we have been missunderstood as the loosers trying to conquer the world and bring down the airline industry whereas most just wanted a management team who would RUN the company, not RUN IT IN THE GROUND.
The perception is there and I feel it will only go away when there is a name that is associated in a more positive light. Look how things change when ValueJet took the AirTrans name. Most don't remember that VJet actually bought Atran but kept their name.
There is alittle info. The old US doesn't fight about who worked for whom..Bad times have away of uniting groups and any post merger resentments faded and were onlywith a few bad apples.
I don't know if this helped, but it may give some insight as to why the old US is perceived as it was and why many STILL won't let it go.
