USAir in trouble???
 

I've posted this on the airline forum as well, but thought this is important info.

First hint of trouble was reported by NYT, today there is more in the USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/today/sky.htm

It does not look good. Major assets are put up for sale, cash flow problems, FAs lawsuits, etc...etc...

Any USAir FFs may want to consider cashing in their miles. I'm usually the last of the alarmists, but this looks serious.

They've been in trouble for awhile, but since one of their hubs is near me, we hear a lot more news. Specifically, they have made an agreement with Pittsburgh International Airport to only operate 10 gates after September. Plus, they have hundreds of outstanding grievances with their various unions--you know what that adds up to in $$ and cents.

Oh dear. My husband's a gold level USAir frequent flier. As of now, we can use our miles on United. Do you think this would cease? We have been saving up for a trip to the USVI. I have noticed that FF were getting increasingly harder to use. I would hate to lose them! Karen

Follow the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette link and you get more choice commentary. What a nightmare. I wonder what the impact is/will be on Pittsburgh International Airport or, for that matter, Charlotte? Once USAir leaves Charlotte, who flies/will fly there?

USAirways has one of the strongest presences in the caribbean. I'm not too worried about them.

AA is suppose to in the running for USAir Shuttle.

I think they are also selling some airport slots. Not sure which ones.

In the event of stopping operations, many of the routes will be grabbed by others, so while it may hurt some airports at first, at many it will just a simple sign change above the check-in desks.

Sad if this happens, but between the inept mngt. and the ever demanding unions, plus with the weak economy that we experienced for few years thrown in to the mix, there is always a victim in the airline industry. Life will go on. After all remember PanAm, Eastern, TWA plus few more? That's how they started before closing the door. When you try to sell your office desk to pay your monthly rent, well..... we all know the results.

I am not too worried about FF miles..

I actually had EASTERN Airline miles and they were converted into Continental Air FF miles and I STILL have not used them...

Someone always takes up the slack...

However, I sincerely hope that USAIR does NOT go belly up as they are our MAJOR carriet in Richmond....

This might be an unpopular opinion, but the folks in Pittsburgh get -0-, count 'em, -0-, breaks from USAirways on airfares. We are held captive audience to their stronghold here, and we've been wishing for some other low-cost carriers to come in here. There are places, as well, that USAirways doesn't fly to that make it difficult when planning certain destinations. Also, when mentioned above about selling some of their slots, the agreement with Pittsburgh Int'l allows them to sell off their slots (except for the 10 they've agreed 10) after September.

I just cashed in 160k miles on business class on USAIR to France...trick is we don't go till Sept. Any guesses if they will still be flying then?

That article also said that United is planning to come out of Ch 11 bankruptcy in June. This is good news. My fantasy would be that UA buys US (or part of it) and Dividend miles move to Mileage Plus (like the TWA miles went to the AAdvantage program).

I think with Southwest starting service to and from Philadelphia, USAir's problems will only get worse. Any place where Southwest begins service,the other carriers have to reduce prices to compete. We saw prices from our area greatly drop to Norfolk when Southwest moved in. If only the discount airlines could get in to places like Cincinnati and Atlanta!

Hugglyn - I don't think you have an unpopular opinion - I feel the same way. We fly out of Phila. and I've seen our air fares rise and rise. Four years ago we flew to Fla. for about $200 rt. For this April the best fares I could get were $330. We wanted to go to Fla. (Ft.L) again in April to visit my husband's great-grandmother for her 100th birthday, but fares are now $550! I have complained about this here before, and someone from Fla. mentioned they fly USAir out of Tampa to PHL for about $178. The only time I've ever seen a fare like that was during certain periods and then you had to fly at 6am or really late at night. And the dates allowed were severely limited. But we do have the advantage of flying many places domestically non-stop. And we have found that since USAir partnered with United, it opened many destinations out west to us (plus Hawaii) that were not served before.

If you live in a hub city like Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, it's a trade off. You pay higher fares BUT you can fly nonstop to MANY destinations.

I live in New Orleans. Lots of airlines and no dominant carrier. BUT, we have to connect at a hub when we travel to 80% of the airports out there.

There is a possibility that US Airways will sell its Philadlephia hub. Southwest is set to begin flying out of Philadelphia (which has some of the highest fares BTW) on May 9th. Initial Southwest Airlines destinations will be:

Chicago Midway, Las Vegas, Orlando, Phoenix, Providence, and Tampa Bay.

http://southwest.com/about_swa/press/prindex.html

Southwest is definitely going for the jugular. This is the beginning of the end for US Airways.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/n...nt/7118943.htm

Karens, start checking Delta's fares to fly to FL, you may have to connect in Atlanta, but when we went in December, they flew larger planes (MD80's to/from Pit, 757 and 767 to/from Atlanta) and we got a decent fare. I don't mind stopping in Atlanta for that. Also, I think you can fly JetBlue into Atlanta then FL for even less and now their talking about in-flight entertainment options which I would be totally jazzed about (as long as their different options than what Southwest provides) :) Dan, you're right, we may get to fly non-stop to some destinations, but there are still a lot of places USAirways DOESN'T fly to compared to the other majors.

I'm still asleep this morning as I checked my atrocious spelling using "their" twice above instead of "they're". Wonder if the Donald would hire me? I could at least help with that comb-over =-o

This may also be an unpopular opinion, but I, for one, am hoping that US bites the dust but good.

For most of the 70s and early 80s, persons from the Great Lakes states had no alternatives to the east coast. I took US quite a bit between CMH and LGA . . . between the lost luggage, late arrivals, and surly staff, I finally vowed to walk rather than take another US flight. Any business person from CMH I have ever talked to also avoids US . . . seems they are about as popular as dry rot.

The only thing I am surprised at is that they've held on for this long.