Posted 01 June 2004 - 07:43 AM
You're presuming that no other airline would be interested in stepping in, and that's a bad presumption to make, considering Charlotte's affordability and location. If US Airways leaves, some other airline will take their place, sooner than later.
Again, that's me, the optimist.
And of course, even that is presuming that the sky will fall on US Airways. I think we all assume that they'll eventually fold, but who knows, maybe they'll pull through. I don't see it, but hey, you never know. If they do pull through, then Charlotte will be all the better off. We were their largest hub to start, and now they've clearly taken steps to make CLT an even more integral part of their system.
More flights out of Charlotte?
If a US Airways makeover works, area passengers would see more direct flights and cheaper tickets
TED REED
Charlotte passengers should benefit if US Airways manages to remake itself as a low-fare airline with more point-to-point service and less emphasis on connecting flights. Not only would the airline gradually adopt lower fares here, it also would offer more flights.
Most of the talk about the airline's latest restructuring plan has focused on its operations in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Pittsburgh International Airport is losing its hub, meaning few passengers will connect there.
At Philadelphia International Airport, US Airways will focus less on connecting traffic because it believes low fares will generate more local traffic. Fares have been falling rapidly in Philadelphia because low-fare king Southwest Airlines began flying there May 9.
US Airways' operations at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, already its largest hub, will change, too. While connecting traffic becomes less important in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, "US Airways will grow Charlotte and make it our primary connecting operation," the airline said last week in an employee newsletter.
As for fares, airline executives told union leaders this month that increasing competition from low-fare carriers means most U.S. markets will see lower fares by 2007. From conversations I've had with airline officials, it seems their goal is to move faster than that in Charlotte -- home of the highest fares in the nation -- although they have not laid out a timetable.
The number of Charlotte flights would grow for two reasons. US Airways wants to increase its profitable Caribbean flying, which operates primarily from Charlotte. The airline also says it will move some Pittsburgh flights to either Charlotte or Philadelphia. That could mean more flights from Charlotte to the West Coast or to smaller cities whose passengers now connect through Pittsburgh.
The plan could mean that US Airways will increase the number of "banks" at the Charlotte hub, and make each bank smaller. In airline parlance, banks are the clusters of flights that make up a hub system. In a bank, dozens of flights arrive and depart in a narrow timeframe, usually around an hour, allowing passengers to connect between flights.
Currently, the airline operates eight banks in Charlotte, starting at 8 a.m. and ending at 9:55 p.m. In each bank, an average of 58 flights arrives and departs.
Charlotte Aviation Director Jerry Orr said the airline may well move to 10 banks, the number it operated two years ago. "You want as many banks as you can squeeze in," he said. "If you jam the banks closer together, it's more efficient. You can keep the airplanes in the air more and you get more productivity out of the ground people."
For local passengers, more banks could mean even more frequent flights to key destinations such as New York La Guardia and Washington National airports. But Orr said there's a downside: With banks jammed closer together, runways are constantly in use, allowing less margin to accommodate late planes and increasing the chance of delays or cancellations.
Here are plans for US Airways' other key cities:
• In Philadelphia, "domestic flights will not be bunched up ... to accommodate connections, but scheduled more on a `rolling' basis targeted at local customers," the airline's newsletter said.
Because low fares will stimulate more local traffic in a heavily populated area, US Airways can rely more on local passengers rather than having planes wait for connecting passengers to arrive on incoming flights.
• Pittsburgh will have fewer flights and fewer nonstop destinations. The airline will offer flights geared to the demands of Pittsburgh travelers rather than connecting travelers.
• New York and Washington are the nation's largest local markets for airline passengers, while Boston is eighth. US Airways has large shares of the gates and counter space at La Guardia, Reagan National and Logan airports, and large shares of the assigned takeoff and departure times, known as "slots," at La Guardia and National.
The airline wants to use these assets to serve the routes flown by local residents. For instance, it would likely add flights between New York and Detroit, a route where it doesn't fly now.
Bad experience
Mooresville resident Amy Bernstein, who is seven months pregnant, had an uncomfortable experience last week on a Continental Airlines flight from Greensboro to Newark, N.J. for about 15 minutes, waiting for portable steps to be rolled up so passengers could get off. Bernstein had to use the bathroom. But a flight attendant wouldn't let her.
At one point, she said, she got up and the flight attendant "barked into the intercom `Sit back down, ma'am.' " She said she pleaded with the flight attendant, but to no avail. "When I got to the terminal, I was in tears," she wrote. "I wish I had known this bathroom policy ahead of time so I would have known to go to the bathroom before we started descending."
Bernstein sent an e-mail to Continental. The airline apologized for the flight attendant's response, noting that while "All passengers are required to stay seated on an active runway ... the situation could have been handled in a professional manner."
A flight attendant we know might have let Bernstein use the bathroom, but noted that federal regulations prohibit passengers from standing up until the plane's wheels are blocked and the "fasten seat belt" signs are turned off.
Free plastic bags
Officials at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which has been having security checkpoint delays, are trying a new gimmick to move passengers through more quickly. They are handing out resealable plastic bags to passengers who are in line at the checkpoints.
The bags promote "early divestiture," said Yolanda Clark, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration. This means, in TSA-talk, that passengers already have taken their keys, coins and other metal items out of their pockets and put them in the bags before arriving at the metal detector. That "increases throughput," Clark said.
With the heavy summer travel season upon them, airlines, airports and the TSA are hoping that passengers will know how to help the screening process along. Getting metal into bags or bins, taking laptop computers out of their cases and removing shoes with metal are key steps, because they mean passengers don't have to go through a second level of screening.
Orr said there are no current plans to use plastic bags at Charlotte/Douglas because the advantages and disadvantages of using bags are roughly equivalent. While the bags may speed some people through security, a worker has to hand them out, and other workers sometimes have to open the bags to spread out the contents before screening, Orr said.
"We have discussed it up one side and down the other, and came to the conclusion that it costs as much as you gain."
Fare update
A new survey shows that Charlotte air fares rose 9.9 percent between the fourth quarter of 2002 and the fourth quarter of 2003, the highest rate of increase in the continental United States. Two airports in Hawaii had larger increases, while the national average increase was 1.5 percent, according to the survey by the Department of Transportation. Also in the top five: Columbus, Ohio, 9.9 percent; and Manchester, N.H., 8.2 percent.
Another recent Transportation Department survey showed Charlotte had the country's highest fares in the third quarter of 2003.
Ted
Reed
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