Mgmt. Admits Reason For Fiasco-afa E-line

songbirdstew

Senior
Sep 10, 2003
478
51
Management finally admits the reasons for the holiday customer disruptions.

January 2, 2005

Dear Members,
Happy New Year, and hope all of you had a pleasant and safe New Year celebration.
What a way to start 2005...
In the Pittsburgh Post Gazette today, Jerry Glass finally admits that the Company had cut their "employment base" in an effort to fight for survival this year. Glass states, that "absences by employees hurt this airline's ability to cope with the circumstances. He maintains that foul weather was the primary culprit in US Airways' failing during Christmas."
AFA can make no excuses for sick calls by folks who are not sick on any day, any holiday, in any year....however, the operation in Philadelphia has been a "fragile" operation on a daily bases since the downsizing of the PIT operation. Much of the holiday traffic used to go through Pittsburgh, but it turned into a "focus city" this past October. We had basically the exact same number of sick calls during the holiday. And on Christmas Eve we had even less than 2003.
One has to ask oneself...what happened in Philadelphia this holiday? And why did we fail the customer?
With PHL airport having one of the highest O/D traffic of any airport, coupled with an increase in holiday traffic, increase in bag transfers, same staffing levels that you have monthly that admittedly are lower than last year, add in some bad weather, along with holiday sick calls, and your set up for the "perfect storm".
This management was not prepared this year for running Philadelphia's holiday operation; a solo HUB on the east coast, with in climate weather, and keeping staffing at the same level as if it were a regular day. We still operate as a Hub and Spoke System, only thing is with such a large airline, we operate out of two hubs to connect the passengers and transfer the luggage. And I know that the "powers that be" didn't take these issues into consideration when staffing PHL and anticipating different scenarios that could create a "mishap".
By the Company's recent admission, the Company has taken the first step to improving relations between management and labor and shouldering some of the responsibility for the lack of foresight in anticipating increases in holiday travel through Philadelphia. As Jerry Glass admitted, "the Company considers the troubles of Christmas week a painful lesson that will be learned from".
There were tens of hundreds of volunteers throughout the system that went to PHL airport to assist with the holiday travel by providing the extra staffing desperately needed to handle this traffic.
This weekend we had no cancellations. In fact, we were able to carry hundreds of Comair (Delta Subsidiary) passengers through Philadelphia, due to their hundreds of cancellations.
With the 'black eye' Labor and the entire Company received this holiday, it will take a lot of concentrated effort to win the customers back and gain their trust. We will prove that we at USAirways CAN deliver. This endeavor is not insurmountable. It will just take some newly generated energy to rise above and meet the challenge.
Teddy Xidas
MEC President, AFA-CWA
 
yeah hello glass you failed miserably and BECAUSE YOU JERRY GLASS Failed to see what staffing levels were needed in phl and still does today we will see crap like this happen just not as bad i hope. NOW FIX PHL ops up or get lost and leave your millions behind for all of us starving usair employees that you and you gangsters stole from us. it is about time you admitted your mistakes. may be next time you will listen to the unions when they tell you you need staffing or problems will arise.
 
It's too bad that Bruce spewed incorrect information into the news. Maybe the judge will see that a majority of the customers leaving US have nothing to do with the employees but the fact that management is scaring them away in droves.
 
Well, the 11PM Philly news just slammed USAirways again! Seems as though local passengers have been waiting up to 1.5 hours for bags in baggage claim tonite. and the bags that were coming out were supposed to have been going to other destinations such as SYR as some of the bags showed were tagged! These are a lot of the returning passengers from last week. They interviewed a few of them that said "NEVER AGAIN" ! The news reporter said that they were told that the sick calls today were about 25 compared to 240 last week for ground personnel. If the PHL Airport Authority needs to update this bag system so that it works, then the public needs to know that it isn't just a USAirways problem! Hey Management, step in and do some damage control! :down:
 
glass was at our gate in phl sat morning as we were waiting to board flt 1495 phl-sdq. he came over and introduced himself. boy did we ( the crew) give him an ear full. but we were respectfull about. we told him that things had to change . that someone needs to fess up and be held accountable for what happened last weekend. we also told him that the majority of employees here want to see this airline succeed but management has to pull their wheight. he told us that he that he agrees and that they are working on solutions to fix the problem. we told him it was not good enough that this airline needs to bix fixed yesterday . he then thanked us for showing up to work and told us to keep it up because we are the reason why this company is still here.( glad he recognized that )
 
hey pitt just flew with your friend candy today on a charter . very nice person. also i havent recieived my pin number to vote . anything i need to do ?
 
etops1 said:
glass was at our gate in phl sat morning as we were waiting to board flt 1495 phl-sdq. he came over and introduced himself. boy did we ( the crew) give him an ear full. but we were respectfull about. we told him that things had to change . that someone needs to fess up and be held accountable for what happened last weekend. we also told him that the majority of employees here want to see this airline succeed but management has to pull their wheight. he told us that he that he agrees and that they are working on solutions to fix the problem. we told him it was not good enough that this airline needs to bix fixed yesterday . he then thanked us for showing up to work and told us to keep it up because we are the reason why this company is still here.( glad he recognized that )
[post="234929"][/post]​
I'm so proud of you and your co-workers for speaking up!!!!! Mgmt is so out of touch!!!
They should be hands in PHL on a lot more until things are fixed.............AND REPLACE CRELLIN! :angry:
 
etops1 said:
hey pitt just flew with your friend candy today on a charter . very nice person. also i havent recieived my pin number to vote . anything i need to do ?
[post="234935"][/post]​

Yes. You need to call AFA International asap.

1800-424-2401 hit "0" ask for membership.

Everyone needs to vote and every vote counts.
 
etops1 said:
glass was at our gate in phl sat morning as we were waiting to board flt 1495 phl-sdq. he came over and introduced himself. boy did we ( the crew) give him an ear full. but we were respectfull about. we told him that things had to change . that someone needs to fess up and be held accountable for what happened last weekend. we also told him that the majority of employees here want to see this airline succeed but management has to pull their wheight. he told us that he that he agrees and that they are working on solutions to fix the problem. we told him it was not good enough that this airline needs to bix fixed yesterday . he then thanked us for showing up to work and told us to keep it up because we are the reason why this company is still here.( glad he recognized that )
[post="234929"][/post]​


So he came in to let everyone blow off a little steam... we shall see if it was anything more than that.
 
I'm glad to see he is finally accepting responsibility where it's need. Once again, 'bout a week late, Jer. The damage to the image of U employees has been done. Thanks to early company press releases, f/a's were made to look like a bunch of self-serving, petulant children who alone created a massive scheduling problem.


PITbull said:
Finally Glass is relating to labor.

Someone must have kicked his butt along with Brucey L. boy wonder.
[post="234934"][/post]​