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OPINION
From the March
18, 2005 print edition
Government Busters
US Airways
workers not to blame for holiday fiasco
Jon Delano
Critics of the news
media always charge that when there is an error in a front-page
story, the correction is buried somewhere on the back pages of
news coverage.
Truth be told, this
happens more than it should, and it happened once again during
Christmas weekend when endless stories ran about massive delays
and lost luggage at US Airways.
Remember the event?
Thousands of
passengers were inconvenienced and tens of thousands of pieces of
luggage were lost in transit when US Airways canceled many flights
during that holiday weekend. Airline management quickly pointed
the finger at employees, suggesting that a sick-out by flight
attendants and baggage handlers, particularly in Philadelphia, was
the culprit.
Leaders of the
unions that represent these workers denied the charges, but their
denials were lost in the media frenzy that repeated the management
line that the unacceptable airline disruption was caused by
employee sick-outs.
The public outrage
over all this was so loud that Transportation Secretary Norman
Mineta ordered an independent investigation. A couple of weeks
ago, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of
Transportation issued his report, and hardly a soul covered the
story.
Turns out that if
anyone was to blame for what happened during that Christmas
weekend, it was the airline's management, not the employees who
took the hit in those page one news stories.
What the inspector
found is pretty simple. US Airways canceled 405 flights during the
holiday period, affecting more than 46,000 passengers. There were
more than 3,900 delayed flights, affecting more than 518,000
passengers. The airline also had 72,000 claims for lost or damaged
bags and more than 88,000 calls into its reservation and service
centers on Christmas Eve alone, 55 percent of which were never
answered by airline agents.
While bad weather
did affect service at some airlines during the holiday, the
inspector general found that on Dec. 24, 25 and 26, weather and
air traffic control accounted for only 11 of the 102 cancellations
and 86 of the 208 arrival delays.
So what went wrong?
While US Airways
management sought to blame employees for calling in sick, the
federal investigator found otherwise.
"Our analysis,
however, found that while the flight attendant sick call rate was
higher during the 2004 holiday travel period than the monthly
average for December," the inspector general reported,
"it was no higher than, and in some crew bases less than, the
sick call rate during the holidays in 2003."
In other words,
just as Flight Attendant Union president Teddy Xidas told
reporters over the weekend, sick calls were entirely predictable
based on the normal number of sick calls during Christmas a year
ago.
What happened was a
miscalculation by airline management of the impact of laying off
so many flight attendants and moving flights (and baggage) from
Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.
The inspector
general found that while the airline increased its scheduled
departures by 12 percent over the previous Christmas holiday, it
actually cut the number of flight attendants by 5 percent.
"The
combination resulted in an insufficient cushion of reserves
available to cover unforeseen staff unavailability," the DOT
reported. "Under normal travel conditions, the December 2004
flight attendant staff level may have been sufficient to maintain
scheduled holiday service. But rarely are holiday travel
conditions 'normal.' Traffic volumes are higher, the potential
exists for winter weather-related delays, and there are higher
rates of employee vacation and sick leave."
Federal
investigators also found that US Airways knew it had a luggage
problem before the holidays began because Philadelphia already was
short baggage handlers. A chart provided by DOT shows that US
Airways knew it needed 780 baggage handlers for Christmas Eve, but
it only had 699 baggage handlers available.
Union leaders said
Philadelphia was a problem waiting to happen because of high
management turnover and chronic understaffing. US Airways admitted
to investigators that 40 percent of the handlers had been there
for less than a year, and that the top three fleet service
managers each had less than six months experience in Philadelphia.
In the end, eight
flights actually left Philadelphia with no bags on board because
the airline lacked the personnel to load them. The backlog of bags
was cleared only by moving them out of Philadelphia on trucks to
cities such as Pittsburgh.
The federal
government says US Airways already has taken steps to correct the
problems it experienced. Let's hope so, but let's also set the
record straight. While the holiday problems were exacerbated by
predictable employee conduct, it was mismanagement, not employee
sick-outs, that created the havoc at US Airways.
MR. DELANO teaches public policy
at CMU's Heinz School and is the money and politics editor for
KDKA-TV.
Contact him at jdelano@andrew.cmu.edu.
© 2005 American
City Business Journals Inc.
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Council
69/BOS LEC Representatives - Contact Information
Sherri
Baker - Reserve Representative - sbaker@afausairways.org
Paul Foran - Crew Accommodations - Pforan@afausairways.org
617 750 5726
Joe Cybulski - Safety/Health - jcybulski@afausairways.org
617 251 7812
Karen Delutis - Professional Standards - kdelutis@afausairways.org
1 508 279 4999
FYI
- Do you have the MedLink number to program in your cell phone -
1-602 239-3627 / program it in now. Should you find yourself
or another crewmember needing Medlink on a layover you can call
this number.
--
Do you have the Flightline questions number? - 1 800 659
9859
--
Check out the DELL Computer/Employee discount program at the
bottom of the page on the AFA website www.afausairways.org
DELL has some great deals on computers!
Council/69/BOS
Officers and Representatives
Lynne Caramello - LECP/BOS
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