Holiday Surprise

OldGuyinPA

Veteran
Aug 20, 2002
700
8
www.usaviation.com
I wonder how our holiday passengers will react when...
Ticket counter lines, Security lines, and Gate lines are long, with barely any agents to process them, flight delays, TSA hassles continuing, and phones on hold at res. That should be enough to drive them all away. Should send a clear message to ...
Just call me Dave.
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I realize that you'd really like to have someone to blame for the current situation, and Senor Dave seems to have your vote at the moment. Consider, however, that the two losers prior to his reign never hedged fuel costs, never failed to run to the bank with their pockets overflowing and were given a full layout in Airways Magazine entitled Dumb&Dumber. Those two had been quoted respectively as stating that you can't shrink an airline into profitability and
there is no plan B. They'd taken the time, money and effort to send videos (at an outrageous production and implementation cost) just to broadcast and substantiate their nauseating nonsense to the employees they were s c r e w i n g, and it's documented for posterity. Remember the cookies, then the cheese? They've wasted money, lied, cheated and you want to tar and feather Dave? Short memory.
 
And long range weather outlook expects some nasty winter weather during part of the holidays. But don't fret, Senyor Frick n Frack Austin Powers will offset those wx and poor service related losses by cutting a few thousand more heads.
 
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On 11/20/2002 10:44:12 PM Slam&Click wrote:

They've wasted money, lied, cheated and you want to tar and feather Dave? Short memory.
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Dumb and Dumber(and richer) have already been tarred and feathered, Dave is manning the guillotine.
 
[P]
[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 11/20/2002 10:44:12 PM Slam&Click wrote:
[P][BR]excrutiating delays during the holiday season with the ill-timed Sabre transition.[BR][BR][/P]----------------[/BLOCKQUOTE]
[P][STRONG][FONT face=Times New Roman size=1]That was the groundwork for an aborted US Airways Group purchase of American Airlines with the Onex Corporation providing financing.[BR][BR]I see the phrase Unique Corporate Transaction used by Mr.Munn quite often on this and other boards,that [EM]would[/EM] have been a most interesting Unique Corporate transaction.[/FONT][/STRONG][/P]
 
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On 11/20/2002 7:20:39 PM OldGuyinPA wrote:

I wonder how our holiday passengers will react when...

Ticket counter lines, Security lines, and Gate lines are long, with barely any agents to process them, flight delays, TSA hassles continuing, and phones on hold at res. That should be enough to drive them all away. Should send a clear message to ...
Just call me Dave. [img src='http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/images/smilies/6.gif'] [img src='http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/images/smilies/6.gif']
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yeah,we had lunch yesterday...[img src='http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/images/smilies/14.gif']
 
OldGuyinPA, what exactly does your post mean?

I'm confused. I'm a US1 and have flown a ton lately and all the US employees I meet on the front lines are great. Yes, security CAN be a hassle and certainly we ALL wish the economic environment of this country would improve. Pointing your finger at Dave and saying what are our passengers going to think is certainly a glass half empty attitude, don't you think?
 
geo1004 US1...Glass half full..or half empty..
Morale is at an ALL time low. How many times do you see 1 agent working 1st Class with 15-20 people in line, 1 agent working the coach line with 30-40 people in line, and 1 agent manning the CTX security positon and also covering 6 kiosk machines. This happens daily. I'm amused when those premier customers have steam comming out of their ears due to the stagnation of the lines, yelling for more agents to help checkin the lines.
There aren't any more agents..we tell them they've all been laid off. This is the level of customer service, acceptable to Dave Siegle and Alan Crellin, must want and find acceptable.
The holidays at Thanksgiving and Christmas should be real fun. All the older senior agents are off. Not only can't they fill in for those people, but there is nobody to call in for extra holiday help.
How long will you or other customers put up with it. You have choices other than USAir...ways. Yes Dave has driven costs down, along with revenue. We are also driving our customers away. If we lose our customer base...What will be the point??
 
CS-PRO, you should be wise enough by now to realize that Dave is only fixing the problems dropped into his lap by Wolf and Gangwal. I'm curious, what would YOU have him do in his attempts to finalize the ATSB loan guarantee and keep your airline going?
 
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On 11/21/2002 8:31:16 AM OldGuyinPA wrote:

geo1004 US1...Glass half full..or half empty..
Morale is at an ALL time low. How many times do you see...
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Once in a blue moon.

It happens but not a whole lot differently than ever.

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I'm amused when those premier customers have steam comming out of their ears due to the stagnation of the lines, yelling for more agents to help checkin the lines.
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I see steam coming out of ears every now and again. It comes out of mine once in a while. But I've only seen actual yelling once. 10 years ago. In line for United. The guy was a jerk. If he tried that today he'd be cuffed and hauled away.

As geo1004 says -- the frontline people are great. They may be having a lot of problems but when they're out in front of us customers we'd never know it.
 
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On 11/21/2002 9:50:16 AM UAL777flyer wrote:

I'm curious, what would YOU have him do in his attempts to finalize the ATSB loan guarantee and keep your airline going?


I would have him tell the employees the truth......what's the REAL endgame......
 
[BR][BR]
[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 11/21/2002 7:37:43 AM LDKIAM wrote: [BR][BR]Onex is a Canadian corporation that tried to buy Air Canada.[BR][BR]----------------[/BLOCKQUOTE][BR][BR][FONT size=1][/FONT][FONT size=1] Here's a fascinating look at the whole CP/AC/Onex saga.[BR][BR] [A href=http://cbc.ca/newsinreview/Dec%2099/Air%20Canada/Intro.html]http://cbc.ca/newsinreview/Dec%2099/Air%20Canada/Intro.html[/A][BR][BR][BR] [/FONT]
 
UAL777flyer...sometimes I believe that trying to get the loan will be the death of U. We have cut cut and cut with more to come in order to secure the loan. Right now the call volume for a Reissue/Preferred agent is up due to the first round of lay offs in Res and the next round the majority of the res layoffs are Reissued/Preferred agents. So I can only see my calls and the wait period even higher. Twice last night I was informed by Preferred members that they have never had to wait as long on the phone to get through to an agent. Just going to be worse during the next round of furloughs. Making your bread and butter passengers wait long will not be a good move IMO. The solution would be to train more agents, but that is a 4 week training course. You and I both know eventually the economy will improve, and the way we are going I do not think U will be ready to expand with the improving economy. Kinda makes me wonder if something else is going on.
 
gilbertguy,

Fair response. But what makes you think that Siegel isn't being truthful with you? For obvious SEC reasons, senior officers cannot always tell employees the details of things that are being analyzed and planned. I don't think that the average employee quite understands that.

However, that said, I believe Siegel is doing everything he can to try to preserve U's future and prosperity, either as an independent (highly unlikely in my view), or aligned with a larger, network carrier that could ultimately lead to a full-on merger. But he has very few assets with which to leverage in U's favor. And the longer the industry revenue situation worsens, as well as the geo-political situation, the more U's future is in doubt. All that does is put additional pressure on Siegel to find more cuts. Clearly, that's not an easy task. Going back to already whipped employee groups should be the absolute last resort before shutting down in my view. You simply cannot keep going to that well and expect your people to keep delivering top-quality, safe, and reliable service every day. But, what are the choices? Vendors and suppliers are just like employees. They're only willing to give so much. So, how much room does Siegel have left to work with in those areas? Hard to say. But you have to figure there is a limit to how far these people will bend before they say enough. So, U's options are limited. Even if the revenue picture doesn't improve, it at least needs to stabilize and not worsen. Ultimately it's hard to search for the magic bullet recovery when you're in the midst of bankruptcy struggling for your very survival.