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Grimy way to fly

US Airways customers complain about dirty planes and say the troubled airline has cut too many corners.

By STEVE HUETTEL
Published April 25, 2005

Too often, frequent flier Tom Bascom sees things on US Airways planes that belong at a low-rent motel instead of a major airline.

Broken armrests and pen marks on seats. Dirty lavatories and a baby-changing table held up with duct tape.

To Bascom, a top-level elite customer, these are among the more visible signs that US Airways has cut too many corners as it struggles to emerge from bankruptcy. But there are others.

"It's been a slow slide," says Bascom, a technology consultant from Greenfield, N.H. "This is the obvious outcome of running things right up against the edge."

Dirty planes are just part of the operational mishaps at US Airways. The airline angered customers over the Christmas holiday by canceling 405 flights and delaying 3,900, largely a result of understaffing, a Department of Transportation investigation concluded.

In January and February, US Airways ranked in the bottom third of airlines for running late, mishandling luggage and customer complaints. Its decision to cut back on cleanings between most flights has been noticed by some regular fliers, and they have complained.

Chief executive Bruce Lakefield acknowledged some of the problems in an April 14 letter sent to 28,000 US Airways employees. "On the operations side recently, we have not been running the kind of airline that our customers and our employees expect," he wrote.

"At times, we have stumbled in our efforts to provide reliable service. We also have not provided the kind of management support our employees need to do the best job possible in serving our customers."

That's changing, the airline says. Since January, US Airways has hired more than 500 customer and fleet service workers in its Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C., hubs and at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

To get planes out on time, crews are closing aircraft doors five minutes before departure. Captains make last-minute checks to ensure that jobs such as loading cargo, fueling and catering are running on time.

US Airways has seen results, Lakefield told employees in an April 15 telephone message. The airline's big jet fleet met on-time goals for seven of nine days in early April, the best performance in seven months, he said.

In major cities, US Airways added plane cleaners and assigned each team member a specific job. Now, they finish in about six minutes, half the time it took before. Lakefield wrote that he's hearing "positive comments" from passengers about the appearance of aircraft interiors.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, airlines have lost more than $33-billion combined, and most have laid off employees, slashed salaries and searched endlessly for ways to cut costs. US Airways has been among the hardest hit.

In September, the airline filed for bankruptcy for the second time in as many years. Employees accepted another set of pay and benefit cuts, and US Airways won the right to contract out more work. Its work force of 25,000 is down from the 46,000 four years ago.

US Airways plans to come out of bankruptcy this year retooled as a discount carrier. Two holding companies for regional carriers agreed to invest $250-million, leaving the company to find $100-million more.

Chairman David Bronner confirmed last week that US Airways is in advanced discussions about a merger with America West Airlines. Meanwhile, the airline is keeping a tight hold on cash.

In March, US Airways began using contractors to clean aircraft interiors. During the day, cleaners come through planes between flights only at the hubs and four major cities: Pittsburgh, New York, Boston and Washington.

Under their new contract, flight attendants now must "tidy" the cabin between flights. That entails putting papers and other trash in trash cans, collecting blankets, pillows and magazines and removing "visible items" from seatback pockets.

In years past, US Airways employee cleaners worked at about 30 airports, said Mike Flores, president of the Association of Flight Attendants executive council in Charlotte.

Contract cleaners often breeze through without fully cleaning lavatories, mopping floors or changing soiled seat covers, he says. Flores put a "cabin cleanliness" form on the union's Web site last week and received 18 complaints from flight attendants in 31/2 days.

"Airplanes can go 10 or 12 (flights) until they get a proper cleaning," Flores said. "I'm seeing some pretty dirty, smelly airplanes."

Since the Christmas travel disaster, US Airways has stepped up its hiring of baggage handlers, ramp workers and customer service agents.

The carrier raised salaries to $9.59 an hour for fleet service workers, opened a recruiting office in Philadelphia and streamlined background checks to get workers into training within 10 days, the airline says. With losses from retirements, US Airways employs 250 more fleet service workers than in January.

Still, understaffing remains a problem, especially in Philadelphia, says Joseph Tiberi, spokesman for the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers.

"US Airways is looking for ways to save money but never considers the end effect on the product they're trying to sell," he said. "That's something now they have to deal with."

Some frequent fliers complain that the airline's service is deteriorating.

A group that corresponds on the Internet site www.flyertalk.com urged unhappy customers to send tubes of lipstick to US Airways headquarters in Arlington, Va. Their point: Changes the airline made to improve customer service are merely cosmetic.

US Airways closed frequent-flier clubs in West Palm Beach, Los Angeles and San Francisco on April 2 and won't reopen one in Orlando that closed in October after hurricane damage. Last year, the airline shut down clubs in Syracuse, N.Y., Rochester, N.Y., and Indianapolis and one of two in Pittsburgh.

Boxed sandwiches replaced hot meals for first class domestic travelers Feb. 1 "as we evaluate vendor options," said spokeswoman Amy Kudwa.

"They're taking away but not adding any value," said Daniel Singer, a top-level Chairman's Preferred flier from Tampa. "They need to give us an incentive to stay because they're not giving us the (same) product."

Steve Huettel can be reached at 813 226-3384 or huettel@sptimes.com

"After 12 years of being elite with US (Airways), including 6 years at Chairman's Preferred, I feel like I'm cheating on my first wife, but I can't take the dirty planes."

- Rhodeweary

"I've shifted the majority of my flying to (Northwest Airlines). Nothing fancy - just clean planes that go where I want."

- TomBascom

"The comment by the (flight attendant) that planes aren't cleaned anymore because there is no one to clean them was the last straw for me."

- Steves

"I saw one person with c-- in his seatback on a US (Airways) flight get an entire dissertation on the industry and cutbacks."

- GadgetFreak

"I really like (United Airlines) and notice the sad condition of US (Airways) whenever I've flown their planes."

- EricH

Excerpts from an April 14 memo by CEO Bruce Lakefield to US Airways colleagues:

"We are also doing things differently in the way we clean our aircraft. In our major cities, we now have three to four people cleaning the aircraft, with each person assigned a specific task. In some situations, our flight attendants help out too by tidying up the cabins.

"As a result, it now takes us about six minutes to clean a plane, about half of the time it used to take. I already am hearing positive comments both from employees and passengers about the appearance of our aircraft interiors."

[Last modified April 23, 2005, 00:23:02]