Costs Of Implementation

AtlanticBeach

Senior
Aug 20, 2002
341
2
A constant in many threads during the past year has been the creation or continuation of activities that cost a great deal of time and/or money. Often, these activities frustrate employees who must implement these actions, customers or both.

Examples pertaining to customers include increased rules concerning club membership, fare discrepancies (F fares costing less than Y fares) and the increase in delayed bags as smaller aircraft have replaced mainline equipment on some routes.

Each of the cases results in significant employee time in explaining the policy/ problem. Some of these episodes results in anger by the customers, further eroding the company's goodwill and employee morale.

Employee centered activities of this kind include, but are certainly not limited to the N700UW debacle and fleet parking issues.

The company claims that there is severe financial distress, which is doubted by very few. Unfortunately the appears to be a disconnection between cause and effect of activities. Wednesday and Thursday of last week were, by all accounts, huge income days. Wednesday is when the discussion of asset sales was first published. An opinion might be, "Well, the public really doesn't care about these press releases because sales were so good". More accurate logic is that sales were significant due to pent-up demand from the prior two weeks resulting from many people having short work weeks because of holidays on Thursdays. The truth is that the news about Airways latest financial "discussions" in the press will take several weeks to filter to customers and even many travel agents.

Consider how many more customers could be served by res agents if they did not have to explain so many things, or if there were not so many fare choices. If management wants better productivity, begin with elimination of repetitive tasks that are not cost effective or customer centered.

The question that should be asked with any decision or review of ongoing activity is, "How much will this REALLY cost?". Not the amount on the check, but all the costs in both time and money. And if time of the essence is as critical as claimed, eliminate as much of the litigation as possible.

In my opinion, it's not the nickle and dimeing that's weighing the company down. It's the rules, fine print and paperwork. That includes the Sarbanes/Oxley manual. This a perfect example of so many things are appear to be occurring in a vacuum. The law is not meant to eliminate reasonable (key word) discourse on one's own time. Without explanation, the company does not provide appropriate (another key word) guidance to its' employees.

Let's see better communication among the company, employees and customers. Without it, US Airways will cease to exist and so many of you, my employee friends, will suffer the most.

<rant off>