• EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH THEY BREAK - PART II
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EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH THEY BREAK - PART II

The Company sent out the following CBS message this morning:

To: usaallmx.f/a
Subject: Holiday Pay

Please note that holiday pay was inadvertently omitted from the
February 17th paycheck for all Flight Attendants who worked on
January 1st. Please do not submit a claim for this as we will
be identifying all affected Flight Attendants and the error will
be corrected immediately and included in your next paycheck.
We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience.

Claims Administration Payroll Department

This latest failure/error comes on the heels of several other infrastructure and management failures. The failures include:

• The above mentioned January 1 Holiday Pay failure
• The distribution of incomplete W2 forms.
• Flight Attendants who have left the Company who are contractually eligible for S3 boarding priority were miscoded to an S4 boarding priority.
• Incorrect Senior pay amounts for numerous Flight Attendants.
• The general problem with the new Claims Department's inability to process claims effectively, accurately and in a timely manner.

This is all beyond absurd (they can't even spell "apologize" correctly). Who in management is held accountable for all of these mistakes?

In the above CBS message the correction will be made on the next paycheck. This would be like a line Flight Attendant arriving ten minutes late for boarding and then saying to their supervisor he/she will show up ten minutes early on the next flight to make up for it.

Management decisions to charge for checked bags and the a la carte beverage program have made Flight Attendants the "complaint department". Revenue generated by these programs may look good on the "bottom line" but "out on the line" life is miserable. To top that off, a Flight Attendant then arrives home after a trip and discovers their paycheck is not correct. On that note, please check your paycheck every time for accuracy. It is a shame that we have to spend our time on something that someone who is getting paid to get it right doesn't.

In an attempt to offset the high cost of oil, Senior management made decisions to stabilize the airline. Once those decisions were made very little oversight followed. Two cases in point:

1. The decision to charge for checked baggage has caused major problems because, for the passenger, the policy is inconsistent. Passengers have figured out how to get around the policy. The policy has also lead to numerous delays because carry-on baggage is not monitored properly leading to the last minute frenzy checking bags at the door of the aircraft. In many cases, such delays are charged to the Flight Attendants. Flight Attendants do not have a crystal ball and can't predict the number and size of carry-on bags being brought to the airplane. The original plan included a component that would have US Airways personnel at security to monitor the bags- so far that does not appear to be happening. The decision to charge for checked bags was not a bad decision, but the implementation has been poorly managed.
2. The a la carte beverage sale program is a complete disaster. Just as the Union predicted, passenger complaints have not died down and, as further predicted, the quantity and provisioning of beverages is inconsistent and inadequate. Flight Attendants run out of beverages and passengers become further upset when they can't even purchase what they want. Simply put, the a la carte beverage program needs to go. No other airline has matched us and none will. The volume of complaints in the cabin has not decreased and neither has the volume of complaints to the Company.

This Company needs to get its act together - and fast. If it doesn't, this airline will fail. In reality, the airline business is not the transportation business- it is the customer service business. Right now the Company is failing both the internal customer- the employees- and the passengers who pay ALL of our salaries.

Thank you,

Mike Flores, President
The US Airways Master Executive Council
AFA-CWA

Below is a copy of a letter of sent to CEO Doug Parker expressing the Union's perspective on recent events:

Doug Parker
Chairman and CEO
US Airways Inc.
4000 E. Sky Harbor Blvd.
Phoenix, AZ. 85034

Re: Company Failures Via Fax and US Mail

Dear Doug:

Yesterday, AFA-CWA was informed of yet another failure by someone in the Company that will directly affects the lives of many of our members. Specifically, the failure was to properly pay East Flight Attendants who worked on January 1, 2009 their contractual "Holiday Pay".

Doug, this is the third Company error that impacts our Flight Attendants in as many weeks. The Company sent out incorrect W2 forms with incomplete information. In addition, the Company has miscoded many of our retired or separated Flight Attendants- a mistake that lowered their boarding priority for non revenue travel from their contractual S3 entitlement to S4.

Furthermore, as we discussed at the last quarterly Labor Advisory meeting we continue to see payroll and claim adjustment errors and omissions. Especially in this economy, every dime counts, and for Flight Attendants to come home to an incorrect paycheck or an incorrect W2 is not acceptable.

As you have said many times recently, "We are running a good airline and it shows". While that may be true to the external casual observer, it is far from a "good airline" in the eyes of many frontline employees.

I use the term, "our Flight Attendants" in this letter because the Flight Attendants are- or at least should be-represented by both the Company and the Union. I am writing this letter to let you know the Company is letting the Flight Attendants down.

Flight Attendants are held to very high standards on and off the job. The Union has a very large concern with the increasing number of mistakes made by management that lead to serious problems for Flight Attendants. Flight Attendants continually ask me, "Who is accountable for these errors". On their behalf, I am now asking you - who is accountable?

I know once discovered, problems are corrected, but the fact that problems keep happening are a concern and a drain on morale for an already frustrated group. Neither the Union nor the Company should spend this much time and effort "fixing" so many problems.

I look forward to your response-

Sincerely,

Mike Flores, President
The US Airways Master Executive Council
AFA-CWA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AFA USAirways Website

www.afausairways.org

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AFA Local Numbers

Council 40 PIT 412-245-1214
Council 41 DCA 703-212-8090
Council 69 BOS 781-289-8454
Council 70 PHL 215-492-0840
Council 82 LGA 315-736-3483
Council 89 CLT 704-527-0325

New Hotline Number Toll Free: 866-USA-AFA2
US AIRWAYS Benefits Information 800-872-4780

Reply to Inflight: askinflight@usairways.com

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