Customer service getting overhaul
[size=6]As US Airways tries to repair its image with top customers, an executive from its new partner will play a key role.
By Tom Belden
Inquirer Staff Writer
In three decades as an airline manager, Anthony V. Mulé has left the executive suite often, to sell tickets, load bags on airplanes, and serve drinks to passengers aboard flights.
One recent day at Philadelphia International Airport, chatting with employees who work for him at the US Airways ticket counter, he was the first to turn and say "May I help you?" to a customer looking for information, according to one of the workers watching.
But the really heavy lifting may only have started for Mulé, a 10-year veteran of America West Airlines who is three weeks into a new role as senior vice president for customer service at the restructured US Airways Group Inc.
Mulé is in charge of helping repair the reputation of an airline that has exhausted the patience of many of its best customers - people like Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania. Gelles, who flew 25,000 miles on US Airways last year, was one of the thousands of customers whose checked bags went missing for days during a service meltdown at Philadelphia last Christmas.
"They really have a long way to go," he said, "not only to satisfy their customers but to match other airlines' service."
Mulé (pronounced myoo-LAY), 62, an ebullient, energetic native of New York's Little Italy neighborhood, could hardly be more eager to get started. And the task will not require replacing US Airways employees, whose ranks have been sapped by layoffs and demoralized by deep pay and benefit cuts, forced on them to help the company survive, he said.
As US Airways struggled through a Bankruptcy Court reorganization over the last 12 months, "the management was just focused on keeping the airline alive," Mulé said during a stroll through the airport on Sept. 29, two days after the airline completed its merger with America West. Although the airline has adopted the better-known US Airways name, most of its executives are from the financially stronger America West.
"Now that we've gotten through that," Mulé said, "management needs to redirect our energies on employees, and focus on giving them the tools they need to do their jobs," including installing additional bag-handling equipment in Philadelphia. "I'm convinced that what happened before was not the fault of these people here. Now we can't let them down... . They just need the tools - and leadership."
Mulé and other US Airways managers have been in a similar spot before. When chairman and chief executive officer W. Douglas Parker was president of America West in 2000, the airline was having trouble keeping enough airplanes in good mechanical shape to stick to its flight schedule. Once the airline solved the maintenance problems, more flights were on time, passengers complained less, and staff morale improved dramatically, Parker said in an interview in August in Tempe, Ariz., headquarters of the merged airline.
At Philadelphia airport, US Airways' main international connecting hub and the source of a quarter of the company's revenue, service has suffered from a high turnover rate the last year. More than 600 of the 1,700 ticket agents, baggage handlers, and other airport workers have been hired in the last six months, Mulé said.
US Airways baggage handlers who once could make $24 an hour after a decade on the job now top out at $17 an hour. Their starting pay is $9.59 an hour.
The airline has gotten better at anticipating attrition rates and having new workers trained as they are needed, Mulé said. Last Christmas, US Airways had "a severe shortage of personnel, but now we are over the number of people we need," he said.
Philadelphia "is a key city to our success," he added. "It hasn't been all that it needs to be."
The merger comes at a time of continuing financial strain, caused by record-high oil prices, for most airlines. Analysts expect only a handful of carriers to make money in the third quarter; US Airways is not forecast to be profitable until at least the second half of 2006.
Analysts consider the new management's relationship with employees among the keys to keeping customers happy. America West and US Airways will continue operating separate route systems for at least two years while union leaders who represent 90 percent of the employees at both companies decide among themselves how to integrate seniority lists.
"This process has plagued other airline mergers, and brings a risk of operational disruption or added costs," Betsy Snyder, a credit analyst with Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, said in a report this month.
Despite the challenges, analyst Jamie Baker of J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., in a report on US Airways, also this month, said the company would benefit from recent fare increases, and by Delta Air Lines - a major competitor on the East Coast - cutting flights after it entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month.
As tough as the path ahead may be, the new US Airways senior executives are optimistic about their ability to turn a profit, starting by enlisting the help of the workforce to improve service.
At the Philadelphia ticket counter in the B-C Terminal on Sept. 27, the day the merger was completed, the company staged a wedding ceremony, with workers from the two carriers playing bride and bridegroom and employees giving away cake to customers. Mulé helped cook 5,500 hamburgers and hot dogs for employees at an airport picnic.
Some employees said the new regime seemed to have gotten off on the right foot, sending in upbeat America West managers to conduct orientation sessions about the new company, aimed at breaking through the cynicism that lingers with many workers.
"I find it to be a much friendlier environment between management and employees," said Robert Megel, acting president of the Communications Workers of America local representing ticket and gate agents, the employee who heard Mulé's ticket-counter "May I help you?"
At the same time, Megel said, "we're just holding our breath, to see what happens, because we have all the same old [midlevel] managers here... . If all goes as we've heard it will, it gives us a ray of hope that morale is going to come back."
Mulé said he knew that he would "continue to hear from the skeptics. We'll work on changing their perspective. I'm not going to change their morale - they are. I'm in charge of setting up the environment."
The other group that fervently hopes that the new US Airways management will make a difference is business travelers who now may start using America West flights more often because they can earn US Airways frequent-flier miles on them.
"I've been sticking with this airline [US Airways] for a long time," said Steve Lapin, a sales executive from Melrose Park, who flies more than 100,000 miles a year. "From the conversations I've had with America West, it looks like it's going to be one hell of an airline. It's really customer-friendly."[/size]
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[size=6]As US Airways tries to repair its image with top customers, an executive from its new partner will play a key role.
By Tom Belden
Inquirer Staff Writer
In three decades as an airline manager, Anthony V. Mulé has left the executive suite often, to sell tickets, load bags on airplanes, and serve drinks to passengers aboard flights.
One recent day at Philadelphia International Airport, chatting with employees who work for him at the US Airways ticket counter, he was the first to turn and say "May I help you?" to a customer looking for information, according to one of the workers watching.
But the really heavy lifting may only have started for Mulé, a 10-year veteran of America West Airlines who is three weeks into a new role as senior vice president for customer service at the restructured US Airways Group Inc.
Mulé is in charge of helping repair the reputation of an airline that has exhausted the patience of many of its best customers - people like Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania. Gelles, who flew 25,000 miles on US Airways last year, was one of the thousands of customers whose checked bags went missing for days during a service meltdown at Philadelphia last Christmas.
"They really have a long way to go," he said, "not only to satisfy their customers but to match other airlines' service."
Mulé (pronounced myoo-LAY), 62, an ebullient, energetic native of New York's Little Italy neighborhood, could hardly be more eager to get started. And the task will not require replacing US Airways employees, whose ranks have been sapped by layoffs and demoralized by deep pay and benefit cuts, forced on them to help the company survive, he said.
As US Airways struggled through a Bankruptcy Court reorganization over the last 12 months, "the management was just focused on keeping the airline alive," Mulé said during a stroll through the airport on Sept. 29, two days after the airline completed its merger with America West. Although the airline has adopted the better-known US Airways name, most of its executives are from the financially stronger America West.
"Now that we've gotten through that," Mulé said, "management needs to redirect our energies on employees, and focus on giving them the tools they need to do their jobs," including installing additional bag-handling equipment in Philadelphia. "I'm convinced that what happened before was not the fault of these people here. Now we can't let them down... . They just need the tools - and leadership."
Mulé and other US Airways managers have been in a similar spot before. When chairman and chief executive officer W. Douglas Parker was president of America West in 2000, the airline was having trouble keeping enough airplanes in good mechanical shape to stick to its flight schedule. Once the airline solved the maintenance problems, more flights were on time, passengers complained less, and staff morale improved dramatically, Parker said in an interview in August in Tempe, Ariz., headquarters of the merged airline.
At Philadelphia airport, US Airways' main international connecting hub and the source of a quarter of the company's revenue, service has suffered from a high turnover rate the last year. More than 600 of the 1,700 ticket agents, baggage handlers, and other airport workers have been hired in the last six months, Mulé said.
US Airways baggage handlers who once could make $24 an hour after a decade on the job now top out at $17 an hour. Their starting pay is $9.59 an hour.
The airline has gotten better at anticipating attrition rates and having new workers trained as they are needed, Mulé said. Last Christmas, US Airways had "a severe shortage of personnel, but now we are over the number of people we need," he said.
Philadelphia "is a key city to our success," he added. "It hasn't been all that it needs to be."
The merger comes at a time of continuing financial strain, caused by record-high oil prices, for most airlines. Analysts expect only a handful of carriers to make money in the third quarter; US Airways is not forecast to be profitable until at least the second half of 2006.
Analysts consider the new management's relationship with employees among the keys to keeping customers happy. America West and US Airways will continue operating separate route systems for at least two years while union leaders who represent 90 percent of the employees at both companies decide among themselves how to integrate seniority lists.
"This process has plagued other airline mergers, and brings a risk of operational disruption or added costs," Betsy Snyder, a credit analyst with Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, said in a report this month.
Despite the challenges, analyst Jamie Baker of J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., in a report on US Airways, also this month, said the company would benefit from recent fare increases, and by Delta Air Lines - a major competitor on the East Coast - cutting flights after it entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month.
As tough as the path ahead may be, the new US Airways senior executives are optimistic about their ability to turn a profit, starting by enlisting the help of the workforce to improve service.
At the Philadelphia ticket counter in the B-C Terminal on Sept. 27, the day the merger was completed, the company staged a wedding ceremony, with workers from the two carriers playing bride and bridegroom and employees giving away cake to customers. Mulé helped cook 5,500 hamburgers and hot dogs for employees at an airport picnic.
Some employees said the new regime seemed to have gotten off on the right foot, sending in upbeat America West managers to conduct orientation sessions about the new company, aimed at breaking through the cynicism that lingers with many workers.
"I find it to be a much friendlier environment between management and employees," said Robert Megel, acting president of the Communications Workers of America local representing ticket and gate agents, the employee who heard Mulé's ticket-counter "May I help you?"
At the same time, Megel said, "we're just holding our breath, to see what happens, because we have all the same old [midlevel] managers here... . If all goes as we've heard it will, it gives us a ray of hope that morale is going to come back."
Mulé said he knew that he would "continue to hear from the skeptics. We'll work on changing their perspective. I'm not going to change their morale - they are. I'm in charge of setting up the environment."
The other group that fervently hopes that the new US Airways management will make a difference is business travelers who now may start using America West flights more often because they can earn US Airways frequent-flier miles on them.
"I've been sticking with this airline [US Airways] for a long time," said Steve Lapin, a sales executive from Melrose Park, who flies more than 100,000 miles a year. "From the conversations I've had with America West, it looks like it's going to be one hell of an airline. It's really customer-friendly."[/size]
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