USAir = Perpetual junk

[BeCareful!]

Not my plane.....never flew the 170, 175, nor the 190. Not sure what you're talking about.

Now.....about that gear......UP!

 

[Deadalus]

Thank you.

Now......Gear Up!

What are you talking about my little biaaaaattchhh? Nicolau says "gear up!", ha ha.

 

[get2flyin]

What are you talking about my little biaaaaattchhh? Nicolau says "gear up!", ha ha.

Not to worry, USAPA will save them (and only them).

 

[puddlejumper101]

You guys have to remember that Southwest pilots are paid the most because every other airline pilots have taken paycuts and concessions. If Delta and United pilots where paid what they were paid 5 years ago there wouldnt be that much hype on their pay.

I still wish it was that way. SWA has always been like a marathon runner somewhere in the middle of the pack. Out of nowhere, all of the runners started to slow down and now we find ourselves in the lead. We look around and wonder how this happened, and now realize we have a bulls eye on our back. I would rather someone else took the lead. In addition, trying to negotiate a contract when you are in the lead kinda stinks. I don't think we ever set out to break records, just that we ran at the same pace the whole time. The contracts that United and Delta had were record-breaking. We just have the same contract we had a long time ago. It's very good, but never intended to break any records. Yet, we get blamed for dismantling the industry when in reality all SWA did was keep it's word and it's contract.

 

[Quimby]

You guys have to remember that Southwest pilots are paid the most because every other airline pilots have taken paycuts and concessions. If Delta and United pilots where paid what they were paid 5 years ago there wouldnt be that much hype on their pay.

if, if, if....and we all saw how long those contracts lasted.

 

[hockeypilot44]

if, if, if....and we all saw how long those contracts lasted.

Those contracts did not last because of a ridiculous amount of start-up airlines paying their pilots peanuts while they undercut the legacies. Companies like JetBlue, Virgin America, SkyBus, Airtran, etc. The list goes on and on. We should have a national union with minimum pay rates for specific airplanes to prevent undercutting on the labor front. I think it is a disgrace that so many pilots are willing to fly 76 passenger jets for less than $30,000/year as a first officer and less than $60,000/year as a captain. We're our own worst enemies because we think we have the best job in the world.

 

[ironspud]

Yeah. You go boy. You rock.

 

[weasel_lips]

Yeah. You go boy. You rock.

Or 747 Captains making $80,000.

 

[Quimby]

Those contracts did not last because of a ridiculous amount of start-up airlines paying their pilots peanuts while they undercut the legacies. Companies like JetBlue, Virgin America, SkyBus, Airtran, etc. The list goes on and on. We should have a national union with minimum pay rates for specific airplanes to prevent undercutting on the labor front. I think it is a disgrace that so many pilots are willing to fly 76 passenger jets for less than $30,000/year as a first officer and less than $60,000/year as a captain. We're our own worst enemies because we think we have the best job in the world.

it was a little more than start-ups that brought down the big contracts........believe what you want though.

 

[Gillegan]

I would partially agree. The USAir, Piedmont, and PSA pilots hired in the 1980's can hardly have forseen the train wreck on the horizon.

As one who chose USAir in the 80's for some of the same reasons mentioned (making money, industry leading contract etc.), I would have to disagree. There were signs even then of the coming train wreck though it's always much easier to see them in retrospect.

In the mid-80's, USAir was a regional airline that essentially ran unopposed in the high cost - high yield northeast. If you wanted to fly to Albany, Rochester, Erie, Pittsburgh or Elmira etc. there was only one way to go and they sure socked it to you on price. Their costs were the highest in the industry. When they decided to expand into a national carrier, they had never effectively competed with anyone and were ill-equipped to compete with American, United and Delta. They were also loaded with hubris. When I joined, a representative from the company came to talk to our class and he was so full of B.S. about how we couldn't fail, how American wasn't going to know what hit them, and basically how Ed Colodny's ....... didn't stink that I should have known better. Well, about the minute that USAir started to compete with the established majors, they started to lose money and it wasn't until American West bought them that they didn't have the highest costs in the industry.

I do think that as pilots, we have a group-tendency (as do some of the airlines in general) to ignore some of the more basic principles of business - that revenue minus cost equals profit, that you need a basic market for your product and that in a customer service business such as this, if someone can provide better service at the same or lower cost, they will take your customers away.

This whole group tendency towards RJ's has me completely flummoxed. The smaller the airplane, the higher the unit costs. So lets fly two RJ's to the same destination within 20 minutes of each other when it would cost less to fly one 737 with the same passengers. RJ's have their niche - as a tactical aircraft to develop new markets but this wholesale conversion to them defies logic. Oh, and let's charge more to fly from point A to hub B than we charge to fly from point A to hub B to point C. Yeah, that's going to work!

 

[glasspilot1]

Usair was the place to work in the mid eighties.

I agree. In the mid 80's I was with Comair and sending out resumes as fast as I could. I really hammered USAir, but got nothing out of them. You never know why.

Then interviews with United, Delta, American and finally hired on at TWA. Who'da thunk it? (Hey I just invented 2 new words!)

 

[glasspilot1]

In their heyday, the USAir employees (for the anal-retentive, no, not ALL of them...) looked down their noses at we lowly TWA people trying to bum jumpseats

Actually, I had used USAir an awful lot in my years commuting and had very good luck with them. In 2002(?) when AA made STL into a RJ base I often relied on USAir to get home when the Am. Connection RJ would "zero fuel wt" out and leave me, and a couple rev pax behind.

I did have one instance I was JSing on United in the early 90's. We (TWA) were in our first bankruptcy and the Capt was very nice in welcoming me on board. But he had to make one comment: "Hey, when are you guys going to get out of bankruptcy and start paying your bills again?"

When United spent over 3 years in BR later I always wished I could write a letter to that Capt and ask him the same thing!

 

[reepicheep]

As one who chose USAir in the 80's for some of the same reasons mentioned (making money, industry leading contract etc.), I would have to disagree. There were signs even then of the coming train wreck though it's always much easier to see them in retrospect.

In the mid-80's, USAir was a regional airline that essentially ran unopposed in the high cost - high yield northeast. If you wanted to fly to Albany, Rochester, Erie, Pittsburgh or Elmira etc. there was only one way to go and they sure socked it to you on price. Their costs were the highest in the industry. When they decided to expand into a national carrier, they had never effectively competed with anyone and were ill-equipped to compete with American, United and Delta. They were also loaded with hubris. When I joined, a representative from the company came to talk to our class and he was so full of B.S. about how we couldn't fail, how American wasn't going to know what hit them, and basically how Ed Colodny's ....... didn't stink that I should have known better. Well, about the minute that USAir started to compete with the established majors, they started to lose money and it wasn't until American West bought them that they didn't have the highest costs in the industry.

1. I was being charitable....the signs were there, even in the mid 80's, but mainly in retrospect.

2. They merged with America West who had one of the lowest costs structures in the industry and the result is - still the highest costs in the industry! Within a few more years they will basically cease to exist out west.

 

[Deadalus]

1. I was being charitable....the signs were there, even in the mid 80's, but mainly in retrospect.

2. They merged with America West who had one of the lowest costs structures in the industry and the result is - still the highest costs in the industry! Within a few more years they will basically cease to exist out west.

Then a couple years after that liquadation. Hopefully next time someone won't be stupid enough to tie a line to the Titanic and they'll just let the F$%@$% go down!

 

[jmreii]

USAir was a great place in the mid 80's - unfortunately while the visonaries in the rest of the industry were placing their bets on international expansion and high O & D hubs (Delta, United) or fueling expansion via low costss (Piedmont, Southwest) USAir made exactly the wrong strategic moves at exactly the wrong times. Bet the Farm on the PIT hub. Bought F100's. Business as usual circa 1976. Acquired PSA and Piedmont and immediately set about dismantling whatever it was that made those airlines work. And spread the high-cost USAir brand of "cool northern efficiency" throughout the decades-old route networks they'd just bought, essentially rendering them non-competitive and dead.

Too bad; with a progressive and proactive upper management USAir could be Delta today, or Southwest.

The real Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) out of San Diego was built on low fares and excellent passenger/customer service. USair was unable to duplicate that product and ended up losing the California market first to United and eventually to Southwest basically forever.

I had a good friend that was a PSA Captain at the time who went over to USair during the merger and hated USair until his retirement.

 

[retired guy]

Has any airline furloughed or went backrupt more times than US Air... Seriously as long as I've been in aviation thats really all they've been good for. So do they hold the distinguished title?

One word....Zantop