US News Now
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Barbell
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Obviously US management is so bad, they even mucked up WN's BWI operation, and went so far as to screw up DL's MIA operation:
A supervisor for Southwest, BWI's No. 1 carrier, said workers had been on the job 24 hours a day since Friday, finding luggage, logging it and notifying customers where it was. Nicolas Hadeed, customer service supervisor at BWI, said he expects it to take a couple of days before all the bags are picked up or sent home.
"This is irregular," he said. "Usually, we have a handful of bags in the back of the counter. Some days there are none. When a storm of this size happens, we have to focus on first things first, and the first thing is safety."
Southwest canceled 354 flights systemwide from Friday through Sunday. In Baltimore, 80 were canceled.
A Southwest spokesman said yesterday afternoon that less than 100 bags were left to be claimed at BWI.
"The process has gone fairly smoothly," said spokesman Chris Mainz. "It is unusual to have that amount of flights canceled and that number of bags separated from passengers. It was an industrywide problem in the Northeast."
Many passengers discovered that their bags made it to Baltimore before they did.
Walt Lukken was stuck in Florida for three days before Southwest could get him to BWI and home to Washington. When he landed yesterday, he went to the Southwest counter and plucked his bags from the rows.
Next up was Mark Greenlaw of Columbia, whose bag traveled but he didn't.
Article, which (full disclosure) mentions problems at US.
A supervisor for Southwest, BWI's No. 1 carrier, said workers had been on the job 24 hours a day since Friday, finding luggage, logging it and notifying customers where it was. Nicolas Hadeed, customer service supervisor at BWI, said he expects it to take a couple of days before all the bags are picked up or sent home.
"This is irregular," he said. "Usually, we have a handful of bags in the back of the counter. Some days there are none. When a storm of this size happens, we have to focus on first things first, and the first thing is safety."
Southwest canceled 354 flights systemwide from Friday through Sunday. In Baltimore, 80 were canceled.
A Southwest spokesman said yesterday afternoon that less than 100 bags were left to be claimed at BWI.
"The process has gone fairly smoothly," said spokesman Chris Mainz. "It is unusual to have that amount of flights canceled and that number of bags separated from passengers. It was an industrywide problem in the Northeast."
Many passengers discovered that their bags made it to Baltimore before they did.
Walt Lukken was stuck in Florida for three days before Southwest could get him to BWI and home to Washington. When he landed yesterday, he went to the Southwest counter and plucked his bags from the rows.
Next up was Mark Greenlaw of Columbia, whose bag traveled but he didn't.
Article, which (full disclosure) mentions problems at US.
I agree, many, many airlnes had operational problems, and many airlines canceled flights throughout the Northeast. The difference can be found in how it was handled and communicated.
The main problem I saw at the ticket counter on Saturday was the lack of information. There were lines out the door, and 4 agents to check people in. 3 kiosks that I saw had Out of Order signs on them. When I checked the website to check the status of the flight I was working (before I left the house), it said:
Status:
That's right, blank. No canceled, no delayed, no nuthin'. So I think the difference is that US pax had no reason NOT to come to the airport, and then once they arrived, there was no one to direct them.. Weather or no weather, that's a US problem. Oh yah, they did have one poor agent passing out cookies in the line (and being screamed at, no less...)
It's the way US handled the situation, Barbell, not the fact that US was the "only" airline that canceled/misconnected/ lost bags, etc.... Make sense yet?
Prince of PAWOBs
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The letter is typical. Deflection of failure toward natural occurence and not operational preparedness. And, of course, my favorite gripe: "We didn't deliver.", as if he had any direct involvement in what was being done in the Northeast operation.
DoUgIe, you're just out of touch with common folk. The offer to join us is still extended. If you ever get it together and want to learn, I'm sure I'm not alone in being willing to teach.
DoUgIe, you're just out of touch with common folk. The offer to join us is still extended. If you ever get it together and want to learn, I'm sure I'm not alone in being willing to teach.
Bob,
Like "our" administration, I would suggest that they do know the truth.
It is simply cheaper to lie. Nobody holds their feet to the fire, like the now-neutered unions used to do. The passenger "bill of rights" is a step in the right direction, but that implies government intervention to enforce, which would effectively rolling back at least some of those "deregulations".
There seems, in the US, no penalty for lying. In the world of the quarterly report, who remembers the last lie when we let them get away with "we're working on it" or more disingenuously, "look over there"?
They will only change when it becomes more expensive to lie.
BuffaloJoe
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DoUgIe is just like Bush, thinks he knows it all and won't listen to others.
BoeingBoy
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Parker: "We cancelled about 1,500 flights on Friday alone (462 mainline and 1,038 Express); on Saturday, we cancelled another 823 mainline and Express flights. And Sunday, we had cancelled another 200 flights."
My math says US cancelled 2,723 flights over the same three days that WN cancelled 354. Comments?
Any idea how many were left in PHL?
Nobody questions that the storm caused every airline that operates in the NE problems. The difference was the magnitude of the problems and the time it's taken to recover. US ranks at the bottom in both of those measures.
Jim
jimcfs
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Thank you, Itestwell. As I was reading these comments, I was thinking exactly the same thing. No airline can change the weather, but people's attitudes can be changed depending on how well it was handled. Positive attitude means customer will return means more money for US. It's such an easy concept than even a drunk caveman can understand it.
MarkMyWords
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Comparison points: 1) BWI was not as impacted as PHL. In fact we had diversions to BWI because they could not get into PHL. 2) Only 1 WN crew base was impacted versus 5 out of 6 US crew bases. 3) Mainline - we canceled just over 700 flights in the 3 day period...what is the comparison of total flying in the area? 4) I believe total flights in PHL are around 500 a day, versus WN BWI operation of around 200 flights a day.
In PHL we canceled 29 mainline flights on Sat and 5 on Sunday. For a station that was basically closed on Friday, those numbers are pretty good from a recovery stand point.
I am by no means saying that we handled this event properly. There were a ton of things that we could have done differently - in hindsight.
BoeingBoy
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Try telling all those people who had express flights cancel that they don't count. I suspect that they'd disagree with you. Of course, you then count total US flights a day in PHL - I guess Express counts when it favors your argument.
5 of 6 crew bases, huh. Seems like NC had decent weather - rain but nothing worse than that. PIT had mostly snow. Then there's B6 - 100% of their crew bases were impacted, yet they recovered much better than US.
How was the on-time during this "pretty good" recovery? As I recall, WN was back above 80% by Sunday. CO, at EWR, was performing about twice a good or better than US at PHL. Likewise B6 at JFK. Both EWR and JFK had ATC delay programs in effect on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, while PHL didn't.
US has had a really major storm roughly every 3-4 years for at least the last 17. The operation is a shambles after each one. And after each one, there's lots of talk about lessons learned and how "It won't happen again." Till it happens again....
Jim
5 of 6 crew bases, huh. Seems like NC had decent weather - rain but nothing worse than that. PIT had mostly snow. Then there's B6 - 100% of their crew bases were impacted, yet they recovered much better than US.
How was the on-time during this "pretty good" recovery? As I recall, WN was back above 80% by Sunday. CO, at EWR, was performing about twice a good or better than US at PHL. Likewise B6 at JFK. Both EWR and JFK had ATC delay programs in effect on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, while PHL didn't.
US has had a really major storm roughly every 3-4 years for at least the last 17. The operation is a shambles after each one. And after each one, there's lots of talk about lessons learned and how "It won't happen again." Till it happens again....
Jim
MarkMyWords
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I wasn't arguing any particular point Jim.....I was just making a few statements. When you say that US canceled 2700 flights compared to 350 on WN, while correct, the numbers are a true representation on what happened. How many flights do we have in the effected area versus WN? How was our PHL hub effected compared to their BWI hub?
As for the crew bases....were you aware that PIT was affected by the weather as well? PIT had an ice event in the morning that grounded departures until the afternoon. While CLT was the only crew base that was not impacted, you do not have the crew resources available in CLT to crew the entire airline operation. With 5 out of 6 crew bases impacted by weather, you know it takes time to get crews back in position. Crews that were stuck in CLT could nto get to hotel rooms, so they were stuck in the airport - rendering them useless for the next days operation / recovery. If I were JetBlue - yes it would be much easier to recover when all your crew needs are filled in one crew base.
As for OTP, yes the Res migration is having a huge impact on OTP and that has been acknowledged by everyone.
And I agree....we always say we will learn from the last storm and we NEVER learn a thing.
As for the crew bases....were you aware that PIT was affected by the weather as well? PIT had an ice event in the morning that grounded departures until the afternoon. While CLT was the only crew base that was not impacted, you do not have the crew resources available in CLT to crew the entire airline operation. With 5 out of 6 crew bases impacted by weather, you know it takes time to get crews back in position. Crews that were stuck in CLT could nto get to hotel rooms, so they were stuck in the airport - rendering them useless for the next days operation / recovery. If I were JetBlue - yes it would be much easier to recover when all your crew needs are filled in one crew base.
As for OTP, yes the Res migration is having a huge impact on OTP and that has been acknowledged by everyone.
And I agree....we always say we will learn from the last storm and we NEVER learn a thing.
BoeingBoy
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Barbell first made the comparison to WN - I was only responding to that.
Care to explain CO in EWR them. Or B6 in JFK. While both had significant cancellations on Friday (B6 especially), they both precanceled flights and their recovery was significantly better than US.
Jim
ps - yes, PIT had some sleet. Didn't you say that the PHL forecast also included sleet? Yet defended the decision to attempt a normal operation because of that forecast. So either "some sleet" was a factor and should have been considered in the planning or it wasn't. You can't ignore it in the PHL forecast yet use it's impact in PIT to excuse US' performance.
SS255
Veteran
No, the problem is the carrier added to the mix is so arrogrant, they will not listen to the locals and expected bs happens.
We are not criticising the lack of competance. It is the arrogance that results in incompetance that chafes our butts.
Two different things, apparently incomprehensible to warped, winger human beings, West hp and dinosauars.
I disagree that we have never learned to recover from major weather disruptions. I have been around since 1972 and for at least the last 20 years I think that PIT RIDC has done a great job getting the system ready for big storms. This is the first time in years that we have had such a rough time recovering. I have heard from the street that the operations center in PIT was hampered by Tempe in their desire to make the decisions necessary to prepare for this storm.\ B)
