Good riddance US Air.
 

I understand the sacrifices that USAir employees have been asked for time and time again. It is certainly difficult being in that kind of position where your paycheck and benefits are constantly being pressured. I'm sure morale is at bottom.

But, for so many employees to have called in sick and to have allowed that to disrupt and possible ruin the Christmas holiday for so many - well then perhaps it is time for the airline to go.

It is always tough when the company someone has worked at for years is no longer able to function. But, when you're in a service business and you hang your clients out to dry when they most need your service, well then we should just let economic Darwinism run its course.

So, goodbye USAir.

I flew NWA this weekend and they were having a lot of problems, mostly because of staffing.

A NWA employee said that they had a large number of employees quit each of the last two weekends.

Keith

Ryan, while you may not care one whit for US Airways that is wonderful and you have your right to your opinion.

However, posting with your particular title may give the uninformed traveler the impression that US Airways has gone under which isn't the case.

All the airlines have their fair share of problems and by your constant harping posting of the evils of US Airways you compound things.

By wishing US Airways out of business, you are wishing for the job losses of 100,000 people. The economic impact of this on cities such as Pittsburgh, Philly, and Charlotte could be quite devasting.

Please stop.

GoTravel,
No offense intended, but if someone is using a travel message board as serious source of news, than I'd say they have far more serious issues than being an uniformed traveler.

In terms of wishing USAir out of business, where did I say that? This isn't about wishes, this is about cold-hard facts and reality. A large group of their employees through their actions decided that they no longer care about their customers and will intentionally take an action at a time of year when their customers have no other viable options. Mind you, this is AFTER the Federal government bailed their airline out.

Frankly, I read that as these employees no longer care.

Gotta side with Ryan on this one. Go, you need to lighten up. Ryan's got his right to vent. Why must you scold him for doing so? An stop trying to be the spokes person for everyone effected by a possible shut down. Those of us who work for a living all face the same possibilities. My company has laid off over 20,000 in the last 4 years and we're still in business.

I was just discussing this with the inlaws. If I were running the company I would think that this may be the time to just throw one's hands up and say "forget it". That the employees can be that selfish to destroy the holidays for thousands they don't deserve to work there anymore... and of course those responsible can't be fired. It appears they want the airline to fail, so why not let them? Of course, that is an easy solution, but there are also a lot of people (like me & dad) that depend on their convenient nonstop flights between here and home to visit.

Less competition = higher fares.

Do you know for a fact that the employees who called in sick did so with the purpose of strangling the airline and inconveniencing passengers? I certainly know better than to believe corporate press releases without question, but in this case there does seem good reason to understand the epidemic of illness as being at least in part a real one. US Air is far from the only business being hit with outbreaks of colds and flu -- after all, how many of those employees got a flu shot this year?

This was clearly a job action.

Cassandra,
Two groups of employees, baggage handlers and flight attendants called in sick in record numbers at their Philadelphia hub. You apparently didn't have abnormally high sick levels for pilots and for gate agents. A flu that hits two groups in one city and not two other groups - no, this was a job action.

Besides, my Aunt made it up from Philadelphia and she felt fine.

Ryan, you have it quite backwards. USAIr should stay...those employees should go.

Yeah, it sucks when your company is on hard times, if you can't deal with it, you get another job. To deliberately sabotage your own company is not only unethical and disloyal, it's stupid and spiteful. I hope they all get fired and USAir finds some employees who are happy to have a job and don't want to drag the airline down.

I've always had good service from USAir and compensation when things did go wrong. I hope they make it.

Our daughter is a flight attendant for CO and was working on Christmas EVE, Day and Sunday. She said for anyone calling in sick the last 2 weeks of December they had to have a docotor's note. For those USAir employees to do this sick-out is the most stupid thing in the world--they are contributing to the demise and loss of confidence in their own EMPLOYER. Just go ahead and cut their own throats. The airline industry is absolutely necessary in a country as large as we have--it is as close to mass transit as it can get.

I heard a blurb on the hourly radio news that made reference to a website though not naming the site that posted a warning 3 days before that advised travellers not to traverse the Philadelphia airport.Interesting.

I find it hard to believe that employees would intentionally run an Airline out of business. I'm sure these people realize they will need to find a new career. But, one of the large airlines will have to go.

Travel is tough over the holidays. We had 2 blizzards,the flu,and the Comair messup prohibit us from getting to our destination over the weekend. At least we were home and not stranded in a terminal or without our luggage.

I'm sure it was sabotage (sp?) by the baggage handlers. When you check a bag, it's bar coded for the arrival airport. There is no reason, except for malice, for so many pieces of luggage to end up in the wrong location.

If everyone was truly sick, the bags would have remained at the departure airport because there wasn't enough staff to process them. But by having bags appear all over the place means someone put them on the wrong flight. I could understand a small % going wrong from human error, but not with the amount that happened.

At this time of year, people are planning vacations for 2005 and beyond. With the bad press on USAir, I'm sure many folks are saying, "I won't go on THAT airline, I might never get there, and I'll never see my luggage."

So if I have this straight the next time US Air employees call in sick check with Ryans aunt. If she too is sick then its legit. :S-.

You are all right, it was at least partly a job action on the part of the baggage handlers. I had only read certain news reports on the event when I posted.

However, I suspect that the "job action" included a percentage who don't expect the airline to survive and were taking their remaining benefit-- sick days -- before they expired at the end of the year, and a percentage genuinely sick, and some -- not all -- who might actually have been acting in protest.

It does seem that the employees expect the airline to disappear, and it surely must be that morale is below zero. In that context, one has to consider that at least some of those who didn't show up weren't acting to force the airline's hand or gain a concession but simply in desperation that the ship is sinking. They sorely inconvenienced thousands of travelers, but the fingers of blame for USAir's horrendous situation need to be pointed in lots of directions, not just at the "bottom" of the USAir food chain.

I saw airline industry analyst "talking heads" on a business news report last PM claiming USAir's liquidation is inevitable "in January" as a direct result of the "action".
M

I'm convinced this was a job action taken by disgruntled employees. However, I have a hard time understanding the reasoning.

Although it is highly likely that USAir will go under these people should understand that these routes, gates and hubs will be taken over by other airlines and the jobs, in large part will remain.

Surely, many managers and supervisors will go to work for other airlines and have some say in hiring.

When I fly, I dont really worry about what color the plane is or what logo the employee's uniform has on it. I want service at a fair price.

To deliberately sabotage your own company is not only unethical and disloyal, it's stupid and spiteful. I hope they all get fired

Welcome to corporate america...tell me about a single company that now a days care about employees..no one...It takes two to tango......

"tell me about a single company that now a days care about employees."

I suggest you read the article in today's New York Times about Wall Street Bonuses before answering that question.

But, I agree that many don't.

I understand that this was not an official union sanctioned sick out, but there was a lot of internet chatter about "we'll show them" during this time of negotiations & impending bankruptcy.

A lot of innocent travelers got their Holidays ruined. This should be thoroughly investigated, and if wrongdoings are found, someone needs to go to jail, and a lot of people need to be fired!! That's just my personal opinion. ((b))

Some facts to bear in mind before pointing that finger of blame:

-- This is US Airways' second bankruptcy in recent history (what? Two or three years?), and its survival chances are not great at best.

-- The flight attendants that everyone is so quick to disparage are not teenagers who couldn't get work at McDonald's. Their primary goal is the safe arrival of the passengers in the plane, and they are trained in this task. Beverage service is actually secondary to knowing how to use emergency exits, deploy life rafts manually, give emergency (minimal) medical care, etc. US Airways' FAs have high industry seniority, but still don't get great pay, and management is always quick to slash their salaries first. Could YOU get by, with your current expenses, if your bosses cut your pay 20-40%?

-- Pilots at the upper echelons of SOME airlines do get paid well. But they have to have many, many years as Captains of the largest airliners to reach that salary level. Most pilots are in the vast underpaid middle of that food chain, and pilots flying regional planes are paid starvation wages (less than $30,000 a year in some cases). And they are often on the hook in those first couple of years for ongoing training, uniforms, etc.

So the people primarily responsible for our safety are paid essentially nothing and get those meager wages slashed, while their managers (whose primary responsibility is maintaining the company's stock price) don't cut their own vast salaries in response to the same "hard times".

Is anyone surprised hourly employee morale is non-existent? Their sick hours are just about the last benefit they have, and they used them because they have nothing else to lose. Even if US Airways limps on, they'll probably manage to eliminate all union jobs, throwing all the hourly employees out anyway.