trvlr64,
I would like to respond to a couple of things that you said in one of your posts.....
PHL was originally a "Hub" city for Eastern. When Eastern went out of business, Midway tried to develope PHL into an east coast hub. After their demise, US increased their presence in PHL to a "Hub" status. We did have a strong presence in PHL, but didn''t turn it into a Hub until after Eastern and Midway went bankrupt and abandoned their presence there.
I do agree with your points of view in many of your postings. The biggest being that Choices, Service and Frequency are the most important factors when a customer chooses who gets their almighty dollar. I would also say that Price factors in with these other three factors. U''s current 178.00 fares to the West Coast are not a tactic of U trying to push America West out of PIT, but it is a competetive response to the fares that HP set when they came into the PIT market. Would you as a customer pay US 350.00 to fly to LAX non-stop versus paying 178.00 to fly HP with a connection in PHX? So price definitly plays a huge part in wooing customers.
As for the cat and mouse game between US and the county/state government, I do agree that this was pretty dirty pool on the part of the company. You are absolutely right that with the smaller aircraft WE chose to fly into PIT has reduced the number of customers here, thus increasing the cost per pax. So yes, the company is partly responsible for the increase cost per passenger. But let''s look at this from a business stand point. Let''s say that you are Dave and you know that the writing is already on the walls for your PIT station. You know that you can not sustain flying all these mainline airplanes in and out of here and that the RJ/SJ is a better match for demand out of PIT. As more RJ/SJ airplanes come into the company you will phase more and more cites to the RJ/SJ flying. Since PIT will become your major operator of those airplanes, you will need to support those same airplanes with offices, hangars for Maintenance, training facilites for crews, etc. You are a very cash starved company right now and every penny counts. Wouldn''t you, as CEO, want to try anything and everything to get as much "free stuff" as possible? If you knew that you could use your current position to "extort" money from the local government, wouldn''t you play that card too? Granted, 21 minutes prior to your exit from bankruptcy is a little shady and questionable, but it was a card played none the less. Every aspect of expense in the company has to be scrutinized to the N''th degree. If there is an avenue available to cut costs, and you still aren''t showing a profit, wouldn''t you play the same card.....even if it was in a different fashion? What if being up front in the begining would have cost you all that political support when the scales of balance between chapter 11 and chapter 7 were so critical? Wouldn''t you play it a little more conservative and squeeze the PA government for all it is worth, then drop the bomb? Maybe, maybe not....hind sight is always 20/20.
Lastly, let me say that it pains me to hear a good customer talk about taking thier business elsewhere. Whether you agree with the management of this company or not, the 29,000 men and women that work here do appreciate your flying with us. It is my sincere hopes that you will always remain a loyal and true US customer. If there is ever anything that I, or any of the other dedicated employees on this board can do to ensure that we meet or exceed your expectations, please feel free to call upon us at any time. Distinguishing oursleves above the competition has always been a mark of pride in our company and with the hard working employees. We wish to continue to offer you the best price, the most convenient schedule with frequent flights to your destination(s) and the highest quality of service that you have come to expect. While we maybe going through some changes now, I am confident that when it is all said and done, we will be able to provide you with the 3 things that are most important to you.
Mark
Cav
