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Middle Seat: How US Airways Vaulted to First Place
How US Airways Vaulted to First Place
Here’s proof that even under adverse conditions, airlines can run on time if they are well run. Read what US Airways is doing right. By Scott McCartney, The Wall Street Journal
Related Articles
Last year, US Airways was the worst among major airlines in on-time performance. So far this year, it's No. 1.
The turnaround has been dramatic, especially considering that much of the airline's service is in the Northeast where air-traffic congestion has been particularly brutal. But even at the nation's worst airports, US Airways Group Inc. has run more or less on time. At New York's La Guardia Airport, for example, nearly 79 percent of all US Airways flights arrived on time in May, compared with an abysmal 57 percent for AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and 58 percent for UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
How can one airline with big congested hubs run on time while other major carriers stumble? US Airways rallied its work force to focus on one goal — getting planes pushed back from the gate on time — and began offering financial incentives to workers for better service.
The airline is spending about $50 million to fix its operation, upgrading equipment and software, fixing computer problems that resulted from its merger with America West Airlines, hiring new management and airport workers, reworking how planes and crews are scheduled and building a crucial new baggage-screening area in Philadelphia.
Some simple things have helped, like installing new electronic displays beside gates so airport ground workers have better information about an airplane's destination and departure time. US Airways also changed how baggage handlers move connecting luggage, with runners taking suitcases directly to connecting flights instead of dumping them in a central sorting area and hoping they get out to the proper aircraft.
The airline made a big push to fill all open mechanics positions at its two biggest hubs, Philadelphia and Phoenix, adding more than 100 workers before the summer travel rush began. As a result, broken things on airplanes — such as light bulbs and seats — that were customer annoyances have been more aggressively repaired. US Airways has a list of those kinds of problems that workers jokingly called NEF — Never Ever Fixed. That list has been reduced by half.
But the biggest change has been the airline's push to inspire workers to deliver better service. "Airlines, or really any organization, need a rallying cry, especially one that has been the worst of the worst for so long," said Robert Isom, the airline's chief operating officer.
The US Airways experience this year shows that airline problems aren't all the result of airport congestion, antiquated air-traffic-control operations and summertime thunderstorms. Even under adverse conditions, airlines can run on time if they are well run. Travel woes today often result from weak airline leadership, disheartened and angry work forces, and poor coordination and communications inside companies.
What US Airways has done is reminiscent of the turnaround at Continental Airlines Inc. engineered by Gordon Bethune in the mid-1990s. In fact, many of the tactics are similar. US Airways pays $50 monthly bonuses to all employees when the airline achieves operational goals. (Bethune's Continental paid on-time bonuses in separate checks monthly.) US Airways offers hefty financial rewards to employees who generate customer compliments, holding quarterly drawings of favorable comments for $262,500 in cash prices, including 10 $10,000 checks. (Continental gave away cars in an annual drawing of employees with perfect attendance.)
Customers have noticed the difference. Jack Malcolm, owner of a sales training and coaching firm, flew from San Diego to Phoenix last month on US Airways "and was very pleasantly surprised to find myself on a clean new airplane with happy staff. I've usually avoided US Air because those items have been in short supply."
Of course, not all problems at the airline have been solved. Peter Arakelian sat for more than five hours on a US Airways flight operated by a regional partner that was scheduled from La Guardia to Raleigh-Durham last month. After more than two hours waiting to take off, the regional jet had to taxi back to refuel, losing its place in line to depart. After more than two hours of additional waiting, some passengers asked to get off the flight and the captain at first refused, then canceled the trip.
"Keeping folks on a plane for 5½ hours is just inhumane. It's horrible," said Arakelian, who works for a biotechnology company. Still, he travels frequently on US Airways and has noticed improvement. "Overall, service has been good recently," he said. (US Airways said it is trying to get its regional partners to improve operations as well.)
Isom, an airline veteran and a turnaround specialist who had been chief restructuring officer at GMAC LLC, was hired in September 2007 to help get US Airways out of its mess. He arrived to find a work force still struggling with the 2005 merger of US Airways and America West. Employees were frustrated with an unfamiliar reservations and passenger-processing system. Maintenance computer systems from the two airlines didn't talk to each other well, making it easy to lose track of spare parts. "Let's face it, there was a lot of finger pointing," said Isom.
After last summer's debacle, US Airways did move to cut flights to build more cushion into its schedule, slimming down in the peak hours and holding a couple more planes back to use as spares. More minutes were added to some trips to more realistically reflect airport delays and congestion. Scheduling was changed for pilots and flight attendants so that the crews handling the last trip of the night into a city weren't first out in the morning. Often they delayed the first departure the next morning because of federal crew-rest minimums, and then those airplanes ran late all day long.
The airline employed consultants to analyze operational problems and ended up beefing up management and ground staff in Philadelphia, creating a "satellite headquarters" with senior officials who could authorize spending, make hiring decisions and change key operations without asking permission from the company's Phoenix headquarters.
US Airways found that different departments had different goals in terms of airplane departures — some thought getting planes pushed back from the gate no later than 30 minutes after the scheduled departure time was OK, for example. Isom installed one company rallying cry: D-zero — every departure at or before its scheduled time.
One major baggage snag in Philadelphia that was causing problems across the country was fixed. US Airways lost space in its international terminal and couldn't get luggage rescreened efficiently when passengers rechecked it on connecting flights after clearing customs. Slow screening meant delayed flights and lost luggage.
"Our numbers were abysmal," says Suzanne Boda, a Northwest Airlines Corp. veteran who joined US Airways in January as senior vice president for the East Coast.
This year, the airport worked with the Philadelphia airport to construct a new bag-sorting-and-screening area in the international terminal. Mishandled baggage in Philadelphia has been reduced by more than 60 percent, enabling the entire airline to run better, says Bob Ciminelli, vice president of the Philadelphia operation, who joined in January from American.
With things going better, US Airways is moving back to cost-savings moves to "optimize" its schedule, taking some of the cushion out of the schedule that was dropped in last year, because the airline thinks it's no longer needed.
The airline is still at the bottom of the industry in customer complaints filed with the Department of Transportation. Isom thinks that's the result of major policy changes at US Airways that fuel complaints, such as adding fees for checked baggage, reducing mileage paid to frequent fliers for short flights or charging $2 for soda. In addition, complaints typically lag in turnaround.
"We've done a good job of training our customers to complain because we've given them lots of reasons to complain," he said. Eventually, the airline hopes better service reduces complaints.
http://travel.msn.com/Guides/article.aspx?cp-documentid=565350
How US Airways Vaulted to First Place
Here’s proof that even under adverse conditions, airlines can run on time if they are well run. Read what US Airways is doing right. By Scott McCartney, The Wall Street Journal
Related Articles
Last year, US Airways was the worst among major airlines in on-time performance. So far this year, it's No. 1.
The turnaround has been dramatic, especially considering that much of the airline's service is in the Northeast where air-traffic congestion has been particularly brutal. But even at the nation's worst airports, US Airways Group Inc. has run more or less on time. At New York's La Guardia Airport, for example, nearly 79 percent of all US Airways flights arrived on time in May, compared with an abysmal 57 percent for AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and 58 percent for UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
How can one airline with big congested hubs run on time while other major carriers stumble? US Airways rallied its work force to focus on one goal — getting planes pushed back from the gate on time — and began offering financial incentives to workers for better service.
The airline is spending about $50 million to fix its operation, upgrading equipment and software, fixing computer problems that resulted from its merger with America West Airlines, hiring new management and airport workers, reworking how planes and crews are scheduled and building a crucial new baggage-screening area in Philadelphia.
Some simple things have helped, like installing new electronic displays beside gates so airport ground workers have better information about an airplane's destination and departure time. US Airways also changed how baggage handlers move connecting luggage, with runners taking suitcases directly to connecting flights instead of dumping them in a central sorting area and hoping they get out to the proper aircraft.
The airline made a big push to fill all open mechanics positions at its two biggest hubs, Philadelphia and Phoenix, adding more than 100 workers before the summer travel rush began. As a result, broken things on airplanes — such as light bulbs and seats — that were customer annoyances have been more aggressively repaired. US Airways has a list of those kinds of problems that workers jokingly called NEF — Never Ever Fixed. That list has been reduced by half.
But the biggest change has been the airline's push to inspire workers to deliver better service. "Airlines, or really any organization, need a rallying cry, especially one that has been the worst of the worst for so long," said Robert Isom, the airline's chief operating officer.
The US Airways experience this year shows that airline problems aren't all the result of airport congestion, antiquated air-traffic-control operations and summertime thunderstorms. Even under adverse conditions, airlines can run on time if they are well run. Travel woes today often result from weak airline leadership, disheartened and angry work forces, and poor coordination and communications inside companies.
What US Airways has done is reminiscent of the turnaround at Continental Airlines Inc. engineered by Gordon Bethune in the mid-1990s. In fact, many of the tactics are similar. US Airways pays $50 monthly bonuses to all employees when the airline achieves operational goals. (Bethune's Continental paid on-time bonuses in separate checks monthly.) US Airways offers hefty financial rewards to employees who generate customer compliments, holding quarterly drawings of favorable comments for $262,500 in cash prices, including 10 $10,000 checks. (Continental gave away cars in an annual drawing of employees with perfect attendance.)
Customers have noticed the difference. Jack Malcolm, owner of a sales training and coaching firm, flew from San Diego to Phoenix last month on US Airways "and was very pleasantly surprised to find myself on a clean new airplane with happy staff. I've usually avoided US Air because those items have been in short supply."
Of course, not all problems at the airline have been solved. Peter Arakelian sat for more than five hours on a US Airways flight operated by a regional partner that was scheduled from La Guardia to Raleigh-Durham last month. After more than two hours waiting to take off, the regional jet had to taxi back to refuel, losing its place in line to depart. After more than two hours of additional waiting, some passengers asked to get off the flight and the captain at first refused, then canceled the trip.
"Keeping folks on a plane for 5½ hours is just inhumane. It's horrible," said Arakelian, who works for a biotechnology company. Still, he travels frequently on US Airways and has noticed improvement. "Overall, service has been good recently," he said. (US Airways said it is trying to get its regional partners to improve operations as well.)
Isom, an airline veteran and a turnaround specialist who had been chief restructuring officer at GMAC LLC, was hired in September 2007 to help get US Airways out of its mess. He arrived to find a work force still struggling with the 2005 merger of US Airways and America West. Employees were frustrated with an unfamiliar reservations and passenger-processing system. Maintenance computer systems from the two airlines didn't talk to each other well, making it easy to lose track of spare parts. "Let's face it, there was a lot of finger pointing," said Isom.
After last summer's debacle, US Airways did move to cut flights to build more cushion into its schedule, slimming down in the peak hours and holding a couple more planes back to use as spares. More minutes were added to some trips to more realistically reflect airport delays and congestion. Scheduling was changed for pilots and flight attendants so that the crews handling the last trip of the night into a city weren't first out in the morning. Often they delayed the first departure the next morning because of federal crew-rest minimums, and then those airplanes ran late all day long.
The airline employed consultants to analyze operational problems and ended up beefing up management and ground staff in Philadelphia, creating a "satellite headquarters" with senior officials who could authorize spending, make hiring decisions and change key operations without asking permission from the company's Phoenix headquarters.
US Airways found that different departments had different goals in terms of airplane departures — some thought getting planes pushed back from the gate no later than 30 minutes after the scheduled departure time was OK, for example. Isom installed one company rallying cry: D-zero — every departure at or before its scheduled time.
One major baggage snag in Philadelphia that was causing problems across the country was fixed. US Airways lost space in its international terminal and couldn't get luggage rescreened efficiently when passengers rechecked it on connecting flights after clearing customs. Slow screening meant delayed flights and lost luggage.
"Our numbers were abysmal," says Suzanne Boda, a Northwest Airlines Corp. veteran who joined US Airways in January as senior vice president for the East Coast.
This year, the airport worked with the Philadelphia airport to construct a new bag-sorting-and-screening area in the international terminal. Mishandled baggage in Philadelphia has been reduced by more than 60 percent, enabling the entire airline to run better, says Bob Ciminelli, vice president of the Philadelphia operation, who joined in January from American.
With things going better, US Airways is moving back to cost-savings moves to "optimize" its schedule, taking some of the cushion out of the schedule that was dropped in last year, because the airline thinks it's no longer needed.
The airline is still at the bottom of the industry in customer complaints filed with the Department of Transportation. Isom thinks that's the result of major policy changes at US Airways that fuel complaints, such as adding fees for checked baggage, reducing mileage paid to frequent fliers for short flights or charging $2 for soda. In addition, complaints typically lag in turnaround.
"We've done a good job of training our customers to complain because we've given them lots of reasons to complain," he said. Eventually, the airline hopes better service reduces complaints.
http://travel.msn.com/Guides/article.aspx?cp-documentid=565350
