Update On B757 Conversions

MarkMyWords

Veteran
Aug 20, 2002
1,900
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Well.....I have tried every avenue available to try and make my point to no avail. Now I will just vent and solicite the opinions of the people on here. Hopefully a collective voice will ring louder and with more reason then just one, since my concerns have fallen on deaf ears.

Background:

Back on Aug 21st we had a discussion on here about the reconfigureation of the 757's from 24/158 to 8/185. The configuration process was supposed to start on Oct 28th. Due to longer then anticipated conversions on the airbuses the the conversion start date was pushed back. Then with the grounding of the Airbuses due to the S Checks the plan was put on indefinite hold.

Well, guess what? Someone has determined that it is now prudent to get these airplanes in and reconfigure them ASAP. Roll out of the first aircraft is schedule on or about Dec 15th......JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAY RUSH! Conversions will take about 2 days per aircaft.

Here is the problem:

When the original plan was drawn up, we had 60 days until the conversion was supposed to start. Inventory Services was on board with the plan and ALL 757 flying was capped at 8 customers from Oct 28th on. This would mean that there would be few, if any, instances where we would end up with an 8 seat f/c 757 and more then 8 customers.

When the plan was delayed and scrapped all 757 bookings were reset to 24. In the process we also announced a fare sale valid until Jan 30, 2004 for seats to destinations such as LAS (which currently has 10 flights a day on 757's).

On, or about, Dec 1st it was announced that we would start the reconfiguration on the 757's starting Dec 15th! Inventory levels have once again been re-adjusted and capped at 8....but it is a little late for that since much of the bookings for the peak holiday travel are already sold.

Here in lies the problem. On many flights we are already booked in excess of 8 customer in the first class cabin. As more and more airplanes start to fly with the reconfigured cabins, the possibility of them flying flights that are over 8 increases. It is marketing and inventories contention that if they start with the overwater sub fleet, that it will lessen the likelyhood of them flying routes to LAS or similarly booked markets. What Marketing and Inventory don't realize is that in the airport and operations environment, the fleets are interchangable and will be cross utilized according to maintenance needs or during irregular operations and recovery. By Christmas there will be approx 5 reconfigured airplanes flying, and by the end of the holiday season, there could be 11 reconfigured airplanes (on third of the fleet) flying.

Now imagine you are a customer (or a Director, VP or Dave) and you have booked yoru holiday travel and decided to treat yourself to first class seats. You are booked in row 5 with your family and are anticipating a great trip to Disney on a US B757. On the day of departure the departure station reinitializes the seat map for the reconifigured 757. Since first is booked to 16, 8 names end up on the unhonored seat list, meaning the customers can not be reseated in the cabin or seat type they were originally assigned. In this instance it will require the agent doing the seat map reconfiguration to reassign seats to customers on the unhonored seat list. How do you decide who stays in f/c and who goes? What happens if they fail to adjust the PNR's for those that are bumped out immediately after the reconfiguration? It is possible that this family of 4 could be seperated, in center seats, scattered around the cabin.

My questions are, Why are we doing this with such little notice or planning? Why are we doing this right over the peak holiday travel season? How are we going to ensure that these customers are properly taken care of and fairly compensated for thier inconvenience?

I see so many potentials for problems it is freightening. When I have brought this to the attention of various departments the common response is, "We are well aware of the problems." There is no talk about what the solutions are. There are no answers. So here are these bright and brilliant people :down: in their cozy offices in CCY and INT making these great plans and who will bear the brunt of it? The Customer Service Agents. I can't begin to phathom the notion of standing in front of 16 people and tellign them that I can not provide you with the level of service that you expected.....here is your upgrade certificate back....sorry. When this happens, comp upgrade or not, it is like taking someones first born child!

How could it have been handled differently?

I am glad you asked. :D Why didn't we postpone the conversion 2 weeks? This would mean that through the heaviest trvel dates the most we would have had to worry about is 2-3 converted airplanes, versus 10-11. The bulk of the conversion coudl then take place during the lull after the holidays and authorization levels could have been lowered well in advance of the planned conversion dates, thus allowing for fewer oversales.

I have agreed with the decision to convert the 757's to the high density configuration, I do think it is the right thing to do, especially in the florida and carribean markets. My concern is more for LAS and the bookings that are already on as a result of the fare sale. With 10 flights a day it will be harder and harder to keep those airplanes out of the LAS market over the holidays. Once the holidays are over, there is a lesser chance of being booked over 8 in almost all markets.

In past years we have blocked XX number of first class seats and overbooked coach by XX customers. On the day of departure we "rolled" customers into f/c on an as needed basis to ensure the flight went out full. I ask you, wouldn't it make more sense to take that approach this year and make 16 customers happy with their "gift" upgrade, or to piss them off by taking something away from them! I realize there is an urgency to get the planes reconfigured for the rush to Florid and the Island over spring break and presidents day weekend, but at what cost over the Christmas and New Years time frame. Couldn't there have been a way to shcedule to work to take advantage of the lull after the holidays? Perhaps reconfiguring 2 airplanes at a time - 1 in CLT and 1 in PIT?

I have tried to no avail to get my concerns heard......I am frustrated and angry at the piss poor planning and lack of concern for the customers we have promised a service to. Are we just looking for ways to tick more people off?

We can't plan for a snow storm we knew was coming and we can't plan for a reconfiguration that was on again, off again since Aug. Does anyone in CCY know how to plan anything besides conference calls and concessionary contract talks? :angry: :angry: :angry:
 
Jeez. And with the fare sale, people are actually buying these tickets. Just noticed that the inflight video announcements were even talking about the cheap first class fares. (Although, along that lines, I was a little surprised that the video didn't mention the price...I mean, $500 is really cheap, I'd think they should mention that...from just watching the video, you might get the impression that the "cheap" first class fares are just like the A4COACH fares, which are considerably more expensive...but I digress.) It's one thing when you have an aircraft substitution and have to downgrade a few elites who were using upgrades. It's quite another when you're downgrading people who paid for first class. :down:
 
MarkMyWords said:
I see so many potentials for problems it is freightening. When I have brought this to the attention of various departments the common response is, "We are well aware of the problems." There is no talk about what the solutions are. There are no answers. So here are these bright and brilliant people :down: in their cozy offices in CCY and INT making these great plans
And herein lies most of the problems with US. Sorry, didnt mean to criticize CCY again, but ..... :down:

I am sure the agents in LAS who could have to downgrade 16 people on XMAS eve are going to be the ones who are the bad guys again. :shock:
 
Well, my first response was to say "unbelievable!".....Then, I realized that it is all too believable. The customers and gate staff will, once again, be kicked in the rear!.

Mark, have you tried to direct your concerns to Customer Services? You probably have, but I'll PM you with a couple of names.
 
Murphy's law dictates that I'm on a flight during this period on a 757, and with my luck, will end up enjoying 23b. That said:

To do this without operational warning (eg, the 60 days notice that MMY references) is absolutely insane. They (inventory management) seems to have opened these flights back up to F24 for a few weeks, and indeed backed them back down to F8 (I confirmed with the CP desk). Both flights I'm on are already completely zeroed out in all cabins, and presumably oversold. The Six Sigma trainee in my gut just did a backflip... It is almost guarenteed to either:

1. Downgrade a paid F customer.
2. Downgrade someone who blew hard-earned miles for a nice change during a holiday trip.
3. Downgrade a VFF who has secured an upgrade in advance.

1 and 3 are probably not what US can afford to do at this point, and 2 pretty much assures one less body to fill up those reconfigured 757s in the future.

I have mixed feelings about the reconfig (particularly to LAS--I think that this fare sale has proven that at the right price point, you can move the F seats to LAS)--but if you are doing to do it, do it right. MMY is absolutely right--if CCY is in a big enough rush to want to get this done by spring, the least they could/should do is put it off a week or two so as not to ruin the big holiday trip for somebody.
 
If you have a FC 757 segment coming up, reserve your seat in row 1 or2! The seat accom process does not look at tier level, fare paid, or anything other than whether or not the seat is common to the new layout.
 
I would think/hope fare is a consideration. What rationale can you possibly give to somebody who paid for F and got Y? I'd demand cash on the spot, myself.
 
Mark,

When Midway went bellyup, we had a multitude of other express flights
cancelled into/out of other cities and the aircraft were used to cover
the Midway flights. Even though some PNR's contained 3 phone contacts
the customer was not made aware until he was standing in line suitcase in hand
at the Airport. This happened time and time and time again. This is a sorry
and embarrising situation. The 757 senario and the express story are the
same in that the Customer Service Agent will be the one to take the brunt
and clean up the mess. And we will have more happy customers.
 
ClueByFour said:
To do this without operational warning (eg, the 60 days notice that MMY references) is absolutely insane.
MMY is absolutely right--if CCY is in a big enough rush to want to get this done by spring, the least they could/should do is put it off a week or two so as not to ruin the big holiday trip for somebody.
[email protected]

Consumer Affairs

Please write them and let them know your feelings.
 
I just think as a CSA that I need to add a plea for CCY to rethink this plan. It was HELL going thru the MD80 and 737 reconfigurations because inventory showed 12 seats and some planes only had 8 before the work was done. That was only having to deal with 4 people downgraded. This is a HUGE mistake that will no doubt take future $ out of US pocket by those who get chosen to be bumped. All I ask is that if this happens in your station and you're working the flight, please check and make sure if there are any BOD, VPs or family members that they are the ones bumped first. :up:
Also if this happens it might be a nice thing to actually use dialnet on our phone for the customer and let them talk to Consumer Affairs right then and there. Might as well help out as much as you can since you're going to be the one taking the c##p from the poor customer who has just been whammied.
 
Just an add on.....

I have been advised that Customer Service Systems is working on a possible solution to the seat map issue and putting in some sort of block on seats in rows 3-6. I think there are still some issues there, but it may be a step to help ensure that the issue of going from first class to a center seat is less likely, but the down grade will still be difficult to deal with.

Look for Customer Service Bulletines soon.
 
Color me stupid, but how will a block deal with flights booked full in the front with seat assignments already made?

The more I think about this, I keep coming back to the move of offering an F sale to a particular destination, and then whacking 2/3 of the inventory on the equipment you planned to use during the duration of the sale. I shake my head. Repeat until dizzy.

Note to self: put consumer affairs on speed dial before leaving on next 757 trip in F.
 
This is completely believable BECAUSE it's so unbelievable.

It leads me to believe one of the following:

They're totally clueless

OR

THEY are trying to creats chaos in the system--that they have an ulterior motive to make things as difficult as possible for you fine front line folks.

Who knows?

I think I will make my Vegas arrangements for Feb. NOW.

My best to you all....
 
ClueByFour said:
Color me stupid, but how will a block deal with flights booked full in the front with seat assignments already made?

The more I think about this, I keep coming back to the move of offering an F sale to a particular destination, and then whacking 2/3 of the inventory on the equipment you planned to use during the duration of the sale. I shake my head. Repeat until dizzy.

Note to self: put consumer affairs on speed dial before leaving on next 757 trip in F.
Right near the door, most seat assignments don't need to be changed, easy to pass the snack basket around... It'll be just like F only a bit narrower and with not quite as much legroom -- and with a chance at the extra special, unique to US Airways, "Middle F" seat! And best of all if the flight is oversold they can send the extras forward just as if the plane had been converted! Everyone's happy! Wow, I'd pay extra for that! Who do I call?