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USAir = Perpetual junk

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OnTheDole

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 9, 2003
Posts
166
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?
 
Hard to say in this business. You know there were a variety of airlines that sprang out of the Eastern meltdown; Carnival, Kiwi, and even some that lived, like ValuJet. Then you have Kalitta, Buffalo Airways, Mesa, Nations Air, etc ....

US Air is doing so much better than I ever expected they would. Of course, they do this as a result of not paying their people what they are worth for the work they do.
 
About as much worth as America West was.

I don't think anyone expected a ticker-tape parade for saving USAir, but a simple "thank you" would have been nice.:laugh:
 
Usair was the place to work in the mid eighties. They had the best contract of anyone, great duty regs, a great pension, were making money, and the company treated all of its employees well. Now it is a terrible company. The thing about this industry is that a lot of the Usair pilots could have chose anywhere to work that they wanted, but they chose Usair. It is not their fault that Usair has been screwed up by management just like it is not the Southwest pilots fault that Southwest has been successful. While Usair was thriving, no one in their right mind would pick Southwest over Usair. Southwest had no pension, paid the least of all airlines, and only offered you one aircraft to fly for the rest of your career. My point is that things change. In 15-20 years, we could be saying the exact same thing about Southwest, etc. Things change. All we do is fly airplanes. We are labor. We have very little impact on whether our company succeeds or not. United has a very similar story to Usair. The answer to your question is no, and America West has never been an airline of choice. Usair has. Thankfully, I do not work for Usair, but I will not bash that pilot group.
 
Pan Am was "the place" to get hired in the late 70's, early 80's as we all know too. Ditto TWA.

Todays "great" airline could be tomorrows failure.
 
US Air is doing so much better than I ever expected they would. Of course, they do this as a result of not paying their people what they are worth for the work they do.

And what airline does pay what the workers are worth? Besides Southwest.....
 
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.
 
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.

Exactly. The pilots had nothing to do with this. If pilot pay would have kept up with inflation, a captain would be making $500,000/year in today's dollars. A pilot used to make more than the President. Southwest pilots never took a pay cut other than an inflation beating. Southwest pilots have also never signed an industry leading contract. I'm not picking on Southwest intentionally. I just get sick and tired of hearing how airlines should be like Southwest when I heard for years how no one in their right mind would want to work for Southwest. This industry sucks. There is no skill involved in making a successful career. Just dumb luck.
 
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?

Yo "onthedole" what's it like having a single digit IQ?
 

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