Fewer Flights Bad For Business

[BoeingBoy]

Airline's fewer direct flights bad for business

By Thomas Olson
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 21, 2004

Nuclear engineers and managers at Westinghouse Electric Co. used to make about 70 trips a month from Pittsburgh to Columbia, S.C.

Article

Jim

 

[a320av8r]

Is that 100 flights per day or per month?

 

[MarkMyWords]

What is a real crock about this article is that it makes it sound like we are reducing the schedule by 100 flights a day, from today. When the original article stated that since Sept 11th we had reduced the PIT schedule by 100 flights. News papers across the country are printing the more condenced articel and it makes it sound like we are reducing the schedule by 100 flights from today's levels. There is no mention of the flights being added back in June on the Sat schedule.

Here is tne more condensed version that has been picked up by newswires all over the country:

http://kdka.com/local/local_story_082113215.html

The whole article is full of inaccuracies.

"Starting next month, they will have to take twice as many flights (to get to CAE)." Those flights bit the dust eons ago, not starting next month. Those non-stop flights had only been in exsistence for about a year prior to 9/11 and the companies seemed to survive the connections prior to that.

"Flight adjustments have brought some good news for businesses. US Airways recently added a nonstop flight from Pittsburgh to Frankfurt, Germany." Recently added? :angry:

Where is our Corporate Communications Dept when articles like this get condensed and filled with BS? These types of things do nothing to help improve our public image.

 

[NeedForSpeedNFS]

Yor frustration is understandable, but the bottom line to this whole situation at U remains the same. Everyone from local news outlets(in Pit) to major financial publications, all seem to agree on ONE thing.... The coming demise of this airline!! S&P, Wall Street,Major banks, and scores of anylists don't like anything they see. So, my point here is not to disagree with you, merely to point out that we are the bad guys on the scene, so we are going to be looked at in a negative light by most news organization. GOOD DAY.....MORE LATER!!!!

 

[EyeInTheSky]

MarkMyWords, did we read the same article? Because I think it was 100% correct. The closing statement in the article should scare all US Airways employees: "Westinghouse Electric -- which spends about $14 million a year on air travel -- does not want to drop the airline and lose its discounts, said Burnside. "We spend about 65 percent of that budget on US Airways," he said. "But we're sort of in a holding pattern now." Do the math. And Westinghouse is SMALL potatoes compared with PPG, Bayer and a dozen others. US Airways may be paying 50 million to the Allegheny County Airport Authority, but they will lose double that from corporate travel partners if they pull out.

 

[NeedForSpeedNFS]

Another excellent, point Eye

 

[biztraveller29]

This article confused me.

First we have the company complaining about the additional time it takes to connect:

"That adds at least a couple hours each way, with layovers and connections " said Mike Burnside, travel chief for Westinghouse Electric. "So now we are exploring using a corporate shuttle" or private jets.

Then, in the same article, we have:

"Many companies these days are economizing on air travel. For instance, Westinghouse Electric urges employees to drive to destinations fewer than eight hours from Pittsburgh, said Burnside."

So adding a connection of 1-2 hours = bad

Driving for 8 hours instead of a 1-2 hour flight = good

Nice logic.

 

[Flying Titan]

This article confused me.

First we have the company complaining about the additional time it takes to connect:

"That adds at least a couple hours each way, with layovers and connections " said Mike Burnside, travel chief for Westinghouse Electric. "So now we are exploring using a corporate shuttle" or private jets.

Then, in the same article, we have:

"Many companies these days are economizing on air travel. For instance, Westinghouse Electric urges employees to drive to destinations fewer than eight hours from Pittsburgh, said Burnside."

So adding a connection of 1-2 hours = bad

Driving for 8 hours instead of a 1-2 hour flight = good

Nice logic.

Not nearly as crazy as it seems.

The complaint about the extra 1-2 hours of lost travel time is in conjunction with already added cost of flying vs. driving. If you can get part of a day's business done and still get to your out-of-town meeting, then the overall cost of the trip goes down. If you now have to expend an entire day on a trip that used to take a half-day, then that increases the cost of the trip. If you're going to lose an entire day anyway, why not save the money and drive?

There are lots of other considerations, too - including the wear and tear on employees and the impact on employee morale, but many businesses factor all of this in when considering the cost of travel and what alternatives are best. Unfortunately, more and more are deciding that driving is an acceptable alternative on trips under 400 miles.

 

[MarkMyWords]

Eye -

My frustration is reading the 2 different articles. The article that Jim posted was written much better and more in line with reality. The second - more condensed version - is much more misleading and was more widely picked up by the news wires. If I were John or Joan Q Public and I read this article, it would sound like wer are pulling out an additional 100 flights a day. That is not the case.

They are talking about non-stop service from PIT-CAE as if we are canceling those flights next month, when they have been canceled for almost two years now! (As far as I can remember.)

They talk about Pittsburgh recently adding service from PIT-FRA. Recently? PIT-FRA service has been flying for eons with a brief interuption following 9/11 and the CRAF missions last winter. PIT-FRA has been flying since last spring - uninterupted!

If you go up and click on news in the upper left hand corner of this screen and then click on US Airways, you can scan the headlines for the last 3 days and you will see that nearly every major newspaper had picked up the inaccurate abbreciated version of the longer story. It ticks me off that the media prints all of this BS without checking their facts, and our Communications Dept does nothing to stop it!

 

[zonecontroller]

PITTSBURGH -- Businesses in western Pennsylvania could face more travel headaches now that U.S. Airways has decided to cut more than 100 flights at Pittsburgh International Airport, one of its regional hubs.


Full Story

 

[BillLumbergh]

Merged topics.