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US Air financial struggles
- Thread starter Saabslime
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charterpuke said:
Why don't you join the moron analyst that announced last January "stick a fork in them their done."
Go ahead and predict the demise of AW/US, while you watch DAL and NWA wither away or merge with some other carrier over the next year or two. Ignore the fact that US/AW is in better financial position than most and has control over the populous and lucrative east coast market.
By the way, unlike you, I take no joy in the demise of any airline. Flyi will no doubt liquidate in the next month or two and DAL and NWA have yet to go through the painful and difficult process that UAL and US and their employees have had to endure.
There will be thousands more airline pilots furloughed, another 700 at Flyi, 400+ at CMR, perhaps a thousand at Mesaba and probably a couple of thousand combined at DAL and NWA, if not more, while Steenland and Grinsteen play their game and prepare their golden parachutes.
We as airline pilots all hope for this industry to finally turn around and in the meantime hope to keep our lives together.
But, you being a Lear driver would probably not understand and we don't need you to feel sorry for us.
Parker has huge problems to deal with and his approach isn’t always the best as he is always trying to save a buck in the short term and it ends up costing us dearly in the future.
Examples:
1) Our website is a disaster. If you type in www.americawest.com you get directed to a screen with the combined logos and two small links to both americawest.com and usairways.com. Very confusing to the passenger. If you choose usairways, and you try booking a trip on awa metal the price will be almost double what it would be if you picked the americawest site. For Mac users on Safari, if you leave out the www before americawest.com it will lead to an error screen. I wrote the IT department about this about a month ago and haven’t heard anything back.
----It would probably make better sense to spend some money on a professional web development team to get the web sites combined quickly. Instead we are doing it in-house to save money and are loosing millions in sales and ill will.
2) The company has no plans to upgrade the interiors of our aircraft. If you look at the successful low cost airlines they all have smart, clean looking, comfortable interiors. A 20 year old Southwest 737 looks brand new on the inside. The common airline needs a common look with a clean looking identity. Instead, you will see years of 737’s with seats from the mid 80’s. Many of the AWA 737’s have seat rows from all our different fleets. It looks bizarre. I was deadheading the other day in the back of the plane and my entire seat row was the type usually installed in the exit row with armrest tray tables. It’s embarrassing.
----But beyond just the looks, the Company has no plans to reconfigure the seating arrangements of the two fleets. AWA 737-300’s hold 134 pax. AAA 300’s hold 126. We are willing to loose 8 seats per flight because the Company feels it’s too expensive to reconfigure. Wouldn’t adding more seats for more revenue pay for the switch itself. Again, Parker trying to save a dime will cost us dearly. The other fleets have the same seating differences.
3) The new US Airways has an identity problem. We claim to be a full service low cost carrier with worldwide service, but we aren’t. An Envoy class ticket to Europe on US Airways costs exactly the same as a business class ticket on Continental or British Airways. Envoy class is nice, but it isn’t anywhere as nice as CO or BA. I’ve flown all three. Our 767’s are really bad. The 330’s are really nice but the service doesn’t compare to other’s charging the same price.
4) The Company is taking a hard nosed approach to labor negotiations. We asked the Company to bring the AAA narrow body fleets up to AWA’s rates and AWA’s 757 rates up to AAA’s rates to prevent whipsawing the two groups. The Company absolutely refused to do this. The Company wanted a 2 hour report for our new Hawaii flights. We asked them to par the 757 rates and for an international override on the flights. They not only refused, they are going to try to fly the trips with a 1 hour report. How many of our new flights will leave late?
5) There is little oversight on the new combined stations. We waited ten minutes two Sunday’s ago for the AAA ramp to park us in STL. The rampers were inside watching football. When they did show up it looked like they were wearing gangster ware and they didn’t have wands or even belt loaders ready to get the luggage. It took the station over an hour to turn us. This has been going on throughout the system, but the Company isn’t fixing it. They don’t want to spend money. It will cost us dearly in the long run.
6) We continue to shrink. Originally AWA was to get rid of 10 airplanes. Now the number has been quietly upped to 15. This includes one 757 that we just paid $1 million to ETOPS equip. AAA is also getting rid of a few more airplanes than originally planned. The money for the legacies seems to be in international expansion. We don’t have the planes to do it and there are no plans to get any.
As predicted Parker is in way over his head. I think long term we will be just fine. But the AWA mentality of doing more with less and no long-term investment is going to be a shock to the AAA people and could lead to years of mediocre performance. I don’t think we will be gone in five years, but we have a rough road ahead. I really hope I’m wrong!
Examples:
1) Our website is a disaster. If you type in www.americawest.com you get directed to a screen with the combined logos and two small links to both americawest.com and usairways.com. Very confusing to the passenger. If you choose usairways, and you try booking a trip on awa metal the price will be almost double what it would be if you picked the americawest site. For Mac users on Safari, if you leave out the www before americawest.com it will lead to an error screen. I wrote the IT department about this about a month ago and haven’t heard anything back.
----It would probably make better sense to spend some money on a professional web development team to get the web sites combined quickly. Instead we are doing it in-house to save money and are loosing millions in sales and ill will.
2) The company has no plans to upgrade the interiors of our aircraft. If you look at the successful low cost airlines they all have smart, clean looking, comfortable interiors. A 20 year old Southwest 737 looks brand new on the inside. The common airline needs a common look with a clean looking identity. Instead, you will see years of 737’s with seats from the mid 80’s. Many of the AWA 737’s have seat rows from all our different fleets. It looks bizarre. I was deadheading the other day in the back of the plane and my entire seat row was the type usually installed in the exit row with armrest tray tables. It’s embarrassing.
----But beyond just the looks, the Company has no plans to reconfigure the seating arrangements of the two fleets. AWA 737-300’s hold 134 pax. AAA 300’s hold 126. We are willing to loose 8 seats per flight because the Company feels it’s too expensive to reconfigure. Wouldn’t adding more seats for more revenue pay for the switch itself. Again, Parker trying to save a dime will cost us dearly. The other fleets have the same seating differences.
3) The new US Airways has an identity problem. We claim to be a full service low cost carrier with worldwide service, but we aren’t. An Envoy class ticket to Europe on US Airways costs exactly the same as a business class ticket on Continental or British Airways. Envoy class is nice, but it isn’t anywhere as nice as CO or BA. I’ve flown all three. Our 767’s are really bad. The 330’s are really nice but the service doesn’t compare to other’s charging the same price.
4) The Company is taking a hard nosed approach to labor negotiations. We asked the Company to bring the AAA narrow body fleets up to AWA’s rates and AWA’s 757 rates up to AAA’s rates to prevent whipsawing the two groups. The Company absolutely refused to do this. The Company wanted a 2 hour report for our new Hawaii flights. We asked them to par the 757 rates and for an international override on the flights. They not only refused, they are going to try to fly the trips with a 1 hour report. How many of our new flights will leave late?
5) There is little oversight on the new combined stations. We waited ten minutes two Sunday’s ago for the AAA ramp to park us in STL. The rampers were inside watching football. When they did show up it looked like they were wearing gangster ware and they didn’t have wands or even belt loaders ready to get the luggage. It took the station over an hour to turn us. This has been going on throughout the system, but the Company isn’t fixing it. They don’t want to spend money. It will cost us dearly in the long run.
6) We continue to shrink. Originally AWA was to get rid of 10 airplanes. Now the number has been quietly upped to 15. This includes one 757 that we just paid $1 million to ETOPS equip. AAA is also getting rid of a few more airplanes than originally planned. The money for the legacies seems to be in international expansion. We don’t have the planes to do it and there are no plans to get any.
As predicted Parker is in way over his head. I think long term we will be just fine. But the AWA mentality of doing more with less and no long-term investment is going to be a shock to the AAA people and could lead to years of mediocre performance. I don’t think we will be gone in five years, but we have a rough road ahead. I really hope I’m wrong!
Lawman said:
Uhhhh, from what I've read, niether company had the money to buy the other. All the money came from outside sources, i.e. General Electric, Airbus, etc.
AWA management told the U folks that they would go with a merger if U could arrange the financing. So it was U who went knocking on doors, looking for a handout.
Tejas
jetfo said:LOLBut believe it or not, by what I've seen things may have started to improve there when came through PHL last week. Some of the rampers were actually awake, I didn't smell any pot and maybe that helped them find their wands. Also, no gunshots and no one was wearing colors. Oh, how I miss Cibo's, although not that much
Who could ever forget the "Crack Shack" over at remote parking...back in the day where a package of peanut butter crackers left over from the Jurassic period was a crew meal.
I walked in the can there one day, and there was an inch of piss on the floor and all the urinals had been broken. Or the union meetings (no, really) that Mesa had at the picnic table.
Heh, sad thing was, those trailers were an improvement from the one before it....back when Allegheny SD-360's roamed the Earth...
Nu
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