PR - US Airways Receives Single FAA Certification

[jimcfs]

Title: US Airways Receives Single FAA Certification
Date: 9/26/2007 3:00:00 PM


One FAA operating certificate marks significant integration milestone

TEMPE, Ariz., Sept. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The new US Airways
(NYSE: LCC) -- the result of a merger between America West and US Airways two
years ago -- officially became one airline in the eyes of the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) today as the FAA granted the airline a single operating certificate.

"This is a very important milestone, reflecting two years of hard work
combining and refining two sets of policies, procedures, manuals, checklists
and computer systems for virtually every area of the airline," said US Airways
Chairman and CEO Doug Parker. "Achieving an integration of this magnitude in
just 24 months is unheard of in the airline industry and a fantastic result."

Senior Vice President of Technical Operations, Hal Heule, who led the
effort, congratulated the Operations and I.T. teams and thanked the FAA for
their guidance, oversight and support. "This very complex process proceeded
on time, smoothly, and was a testament to cooperation between our work groups
and regulators. I'm very proud of this team and the important work they
accomplished here," Heule said.

Work toward a single certificate began shortly after the merger of US
Airways and America West on Sept. 27, 2005. It involved integrating into one
the separate airlines' information technology systems and flight operations
computer systems, airport, maintenance and on-board policies and procedures.
The certification became official after the integration of the airlines'
flight operations systems this week.

Though transparent to US Airways' customers, achieving the single
certificate allows the airline to operate as one US Airways with one set of
policies, procedures, computer systems, maintenance and flight control
systems. The next step in the airline's integration is to achieve single
contracts with pilots, flight attendants, and ground and maintenance
employees, who will continue to work under terms of transition agreements
reached after the merger.

US Airways is the fifth largest domestic airline employing more than
36,000 aviation professionals worldwide. US Airways, US Airways Shuttle and
US Airways Express operate approximately 3,800 flights per day and serve more
than 230 communities in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin
America. The new US Airways -- the product of a merger between America West
and US Airways in September 2005 -- is a member of the Star Alliance, which
provides connections for our customers to 855 destinations in 155 countries
worldwide. This press release and additional information on US Airways can be
found at http://www.usairways.com. (LCCG).
-Fly With US-

 

[HPearlyretiree]

Good news and good work!

 

[iheartairbus]

FINALLY!! yay!

 

[iheartairbus]

When will all the flights show up as USA(US Airways) in flightaware and flightcomm? It still shows them seperatley

 

[CapnCockroach]

Call sign still gonna be Cactus?

 

[allstrike]

Call sign still gonna be Cactus?

Nope it will be (TUMBLEWEED)

 

[Art at ISP]

Congratulations--I think.

I hope this development is NOT customer transparent, and will lead to resolving some of the operational issues. Things can only get better.

 

[rjh]

This is really only a symbolic thing. There will be no benefits gained until the union contracts are merged. This just means that the west has to go to a crappy computer system before necessary.

 

[az_wild727]

Aren't ops moving from West Flight Mapper to the East Sabre system. I thought Sabre was superior to the West system. At least that is what I heard, move capable of handling a large volume of flights...

 

[rjh]

Aren't ops moving from West Flight Mapper to the East Sabre system. I thought Sabre was superior to the West system. At least that is what I heard, move capable of handling a large volume of flights...

The FOS DECS system used to dispatch flights, as well as the FADS system used as a graphical schedule display is a 1970's DOS based system. Simple things, like cancelling flights or swapping aircraft, could be done "point and click" in FliteTrac, and transmit to every other system. Now things have to be done multiple times in multiple systems, using long entires typical of old systems.

 

[pitguy74]

Click here for story

 

[grog_sit_reserv]

Yeah, but is it cheaper on the balance sheet?...

 

[Travelpro72]

There was so much argument over the call sign going to Cactus in the past. So what is it? Don't you have to use the NEW call sign effective immediately as one company?

 

[rjh]

There was so much argument over the call sign going to Cactus in the past. So what is it? Don't you have to use the NEW call sign effective immediately as one company?

apparently, the FAA has given approval to continue to use 2 separate call signs for now.

 

[exB717Flyer]

So what now? Life goes on.