USA Today/More Disturbing News for US Airways

[Jimmy Neutron]

Us Airways mishandled 80% more bags in 2005 than 2004, and they did it without a Christmas meltdown.

How could that possibly be?

PHL-PHL-PHL

 

[SilentWarrior]

Payback is a b**ch! Management treats the employees like crap and we do have ways to get back!

It's easy to make a mistake on bags if they say BDL and they get sent to BDA!

As an AA employee and not US Airways, you just put this in the worst possible light. You are insinuating that the bags were mishandled on purpose, and that does the employees of this fine airline a major injustice.

Could the raise in mishandled bags (numbers in this case) be a bit skewed due to the merger? When did America West's stats stop and become US Airways, or did that even occur? IF they did then I would guess “How could that possibly be?â€￾ would be answered with the fact that US Airways had a bigger network. Not only that, but as connections were integrated then some just got lost in the sauce.

 

[Dog Wonder]

PHL-PHL-PHL

I disagree, PHL numbers were so high in 2004 it would be nearly impossible for them to increase them enough to almost double the whole system's numbers in 2005.

 

[tadjr]

PHL-PHL-PHL

Well the Xmas meltdown lasted into New Years week last year (2005) so those numbers would be included with 2005 and not 2004. Also I can remember at least 3 times that the baggage belt in PHL broke down (and I dont even work in baggage) so this could be a good start to the uptick. How many bags miss each time the belt breaks X how many times it broke?

 

[Jen]

Well the Xmas meltdown lasted into New Years week last year (2005) so those numbers would be included with 2005 and not 2004. Also I can remember at least 3 times that the baggage belt in PHL broke down (and I dont even work in baggage) so this could be a good start to the uptick. How many bags miss each time the belt breaks X how many times it broke?

Belts break just a fact,happens frequently here in PHX,we utilize to keep the mbr down.

PHL-PHL-PHL

So what would the ratio be if you removed PHL from this equation?

 

[Weight&Balance]

The TWU is many things but the savior of PAWOBS? Highly unlikely IMO. The infrastructure in PHL is among the worst in any major airport.

One of the reasons for the crappy attitude of the ramp in PHL is IMO directly in the "Crap Hole" that is PHL.

USA Failed to note that the numbers have improved lately.

Well let's not forget the TSA has a hand in this . Every Saturday with out failure the T HOUSANDS S TANDING A ROUND
seems to be overwhelmed by the amount of bags passing from the belts to the loving hands. I don't know what their reason other than they must be understaffed on the weekends to handle the onslaught.

 

[usjacket]

Unfortunately when you layoff your experienced and dedicated employees and hire underpaid part timers, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!!

 

[Weight&Balance]

Belts break just a fact,happens frequently here in PHX,we utilize to keep the mbr down.
So what would the ratio be if you removed PHL from this equation?

Scrap PHL and you might as well call it a career. As disfunctional as you all claim this station is. The recipe for the problems is

1. Worn and outdated equipment was and still operates on the ramp. GSE not longer maintains our bag belt system,jetways.

2. Management cut the staff numbers in 2003-2004 so far down and mandatoried the remaining staff daily.

3. 2003-2004 saw a lot of senior people retire from the PHL so instead of management recalling laid off workers they stayed the course with even further declining staffing.

4.Managements blindness and igonorance caused the morale of the people that did come to work to collapse and join the ranks of the I don't give a crap people.

5.2003-2004 saw the highest request for FMLA requests because management could not mandatory a person on FMLA.Imagine working a 10,000 lb offload and 10,000 lb onload 757 with 2 people.

6.Management also does not mention their are lot of improperly trained people who do not know how to read a load plan or close out a cargo count properly.No one watches for this and of course CLP ( and you PHX guys want to centralize load planning BAD CHOICE) does not call the station to alert us of missing info. This notification seems to only come when a pilot calls in or OCC calls asking what is the problem.


I can go on and but unless you work or worked in PHL you will not fully understand what has gone wrong.

The last fact is PHL ...PHILLY... Filthadelphia what ever cute name you have for the station. This station generates
65% of USAirways cash why would all the international service be here and not in PIT OR CLT?

 

[Jimmy Neutron]

The last fact is PHL ...PHILLY... Filthadelphia what ever cute name you have for the station. This station generates
65% of USAirways cash why would all the international service be here and not in PIT OR CLT?

Oh please give me a break. If PHL brings in 65% of the companies cash it probably throws out 90% of it on inefficiencies.

Funny how the financial situation just kept getting worse as more and more of the northeast operation was moved to PHL.

That doesn't even count the great ex-customers that will never ever fly US again, because they were screwed over so much in PHL.

As far as intl. traffic goes I would bet that 1/2 to 3/4 of every intl. flt that goes out of PHL is connecting traffic, and all those fine folks are just subjected to one nightmare after another. Ask any of our customers that travel intl.
They will tell you that we offer a very inferior intl. product compared to any other major US carrier.
And why do you think that is? Do you think that the PHL operation has any thing to do with it?

 

[SpinDoc]

Oh please give me a break. If PHL brings in 65% of the companies cash it probably throws out 90% of it on inefficiencies.

Funny how the financial situation just kept getting worse as more and more of the northeast operation was moved to PHL.

That doesn't even count the great ex-customers that will never ever fly US again, because they were screwed over so much in PHL.

Dude:

You're right on the money with your assessment. No mater how much revenue can be attributed to PHL, the majority of it goes out the back door in operational costs, baggage delivery, and dissatisfied customers who are happy to have Southwest there to give them an alternative.

To this day, US Airways has not hired a consultant to do an independent evaluation of the revenue/cost equation for PHL (that we know of. Al Kremlin might have comissioned an evaluation and then buried the results). I bet Doug Parker and company would be very surprised to see the true cost of operating a hub in PHL, and would take steps to rectify the situation if they had accurate information.

Regardless, the failures at PHL are ultimately the responsibility of management, and
if they really want to fix PHL, they need to hire a sufficient number of responsible agents as replacements for the majority of the ramp agents, train them thoroughly and properly, and give them the tools to do their jobs. This costs real money and would probably erode any revenue premium that exists, so I doubt we'll see it in our lifetime.

 

[Finish or Ignore]

Scrap PHL and you might as well call it a career. As disfunctional as you all claim this station is. The recipe for the problems is

1.
2.
4.
5.
6.
The last fact is PHL ...PHILLY...

Please stop talking about Uncle Al

 

[Jimmy Neutron]

Dude:

You're right on the money with your assessment. No mater how much revenue can be attributed to PHL, the majority of it goes out the back door in operational costs, baggage delivery, and dissatisfied customers who are happy to have Southwest there to give them an alternative.

To this day, US Airways has not hired a consultant to do an independent evaluation of the revenue/cost equation for PHL (that we know of. Al Kremlin might have comissioned an evaluation and then buried the results). I bet Doug Parker and company would be very surprised to see the true cost of operating a hub in PHL, and would take steps to rectify the situation if they had accurate information.

Regardless, the failures at PHL are ultimately the responsibility of management, and
if they really want to fix PHL, they need to hire a sufficient number of responsible agents as replacements for the majority of the ramp agents, train them thoroughly and properly, and give them the tools to do their jobs. This costs real money and would probably erode any revenue premium that exists, so I doubt we'll see it in our lifetime.

You got it, but there are 2 other factors in PHL that will never ever change that is

1 The airport itself
2 The heavily cogested northeast air traffic corridor.

So with these things combined together, the situation there cannot and will not improve.

 

[Bob Owens]

Sure you're mad at management so you screw your customer...

If your attitude prevailed there wouldn't be a US Airways today.

I dont think B.O.B works for USAIR. Her attitude is a reflection of the industry, not any particular company.

Enjoy your cheap airfares! You get what you pay for.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Oh please give me a break. If PHL brings in 65% of the companies cash it probably throws out 90% of it on inefficiencies.

Having read numerous times that PHL is such a cash cow for US, thought I'd do a little digging in the data the airlines submit to the BTS.....

The Nov '05 data, the latest available, an interesting picture emerged:

In PHL, 715,627 domestic customers began their US travel.

In CLT, 911,066 domestic customers began their US travel.

Admittedly, PHL had more total originating domestic passengers than CLT in Nov '05, but US didn't come close to getting 88% of them like we did in CLT.

Then, of course, there's the money side. Apparently the last quarterly "Consumer Air Fare Report" that's out is for the 1st quarter of 2005 - I haven't been able to find a later one. But BTS does have 3rd quarter "Air Travel Price Index" data available. This compares average fares to the nationwide average in 1995, using an index of 100 for the 1995 value. Thus, a market having an ATPI over 100 has average fares above the 1995 nationwide average, and a market with an ATPI under 100 has average fares less than the 1995 national average.

In short, the higher the ATPI number, the higher the average fare paid.

PHL's 3Q05 ATPI was 97.8

CLT's 3Q05 ATPI was 114.9

Let's see....... More passengers began their travels on US in CLT, higher average fares in CLT...... Maybe our Philly Factor really is having an effect on our PHL "cash cow".

Jim

 

[28yrsnojob]

:down: When you contract out 31 cities to 8 to 10 ten dollars an hr and no benifits ,thats if your lucky enough
to get 8.00 an hr., what do you expect. These people could care less, they work a month or 2 or 3 and then quit. Then
the process starts all over again. U can now bring back all
ramps for 8 to 9 an hr. with benifits and 401 under IAM or TWU contract and at least get some sort of a steady labor
force. But they chose to let this happen. This is the most
stupid thing I ever saw management do. I know one thing
I know they could never work for me. I want to keep the customers I have.