US Air or Jet Blue??
 

Christmas trip-US Air is better price and better airport for us. Any thoughts on my long term (next 6 months) viability of US Air?

This subject has been beat to death. Do a fodors search on USAirways going out of business and you'll find threads five years old stating they wouldn't last through the summer.

The bottom line is that no one has a crystal ball and they just merged with another airline. In other words, they are stable.

Provided the merger is completed (and the government has already fast-tracked it), there are folks (fools) waiting to invest 1.5 billion dollars into the new USAirways. I wouldn't worry.

Only speaking from a qualitative standpoint, I'd pony up the extra cash, drive the extra miles and fly with JetBlue in a heartbeat if the only other choice was US Air. Love JetBlue, loathe US Air. And merged with America West...? I'm personally not going to be rushing for a seat with them.

But if you don't have strong preferences one way or the other, US Air will get you there safely, and they'll still be around, so go ahead, you'll be fine.

If you do take USair, remember that they had lots of problems with delayed luggage at Christmas last year - suggest you bring carry on only.

Funny, I have flown JetBlue 4 times and was late EVERY TIME from New York to New Orleans. USAirways is almost always on-time or early. Guess you never know!

Agree w/rjw . . . I'd CRAWL before I took US Airways! Has nothing to do w/their financial situation (although I have to admit that I was rooting for their demise); rather, their service is BEYOND LOUSY!

Used to take them quite a bit between CMH - LGA, and they were NEVER on time, they lost my luggage, and when I was stranded @ LGA the second time, the surly old bat behind the counter told me that I should have known that they were going to be late, and they were not going to pay for a hotel room!

I took NW BWI-DTW-CMH this past weekend and my return was cancelled . . . was rebooked on US. Flew CLT - BWI on an old, dirty 737 with seats that were falling apart.

From what I hear, JetBlue is the polar opposite of this pathetic excuse of an airline.

It does seem sometimes as if US Air and its employees are trying to run the company into the ground.

I think the biggest problem is that the service is so spotty. One time, you can fly with them and everything's OK. The next time, it's awful. In fact, I sometimes wonder if the company's management ever takes the time to make reservations and fly the airline, just to see what customers go through.

One note about the baggage problem: That mostly has existed in Philadelphia, where, for some reason, the baggage handlers seems to have some sort of angry vindictive atttitude toward the company and its customers. Haven't heard about baggage problems elsewhere.

I would choose JB in a heartbeat. They are efficient, on time when weather permits...they can't control the weather, and very fast with baggage. JB also now uses amex points, which can be combined with your existing JB points, which makes it more affordable. Even if the seats are not the most comfortable, and they only serve chips, I know we don't have to worry if they will still be in business, we will get to our destination safe and on time and my baggage will be there when I do. I also think their fares are reasonable.

My DH flies USAir at least once a week and he has absolutely no complaints. He feels the service is great (of course, he's chairman status, so he always flies first class and calls the dedicated ff line for service), and he usually doesn't check his bag. But his flights are rarely delayed or late(except in inclement weather, and everyone else is delayed, too). And when we've flown with him, we've had absolutely no problems with checked baggage or anything else.

Earlier this year, I was a wreck with the news articles and especially from comments on this board that the demise of USAir was imminent. I was so afraid he'd lose all his ff miles, and he has a lot! He was considering switching airlines, but he didn't want to lose his chairman status (poor baby didn't want to fly coach, not that I blame him with all the travel he does!) But I'm glad that he stuck with USAir, because it looks like they're going to be fine, at least for the forseeable future. I think you'll be fine going with them at Christmas. We're planning to fly them for our early December vacation.