U.s. Airways
A member of the Star Alliance, it has a fleet of 353 mainline jet aircraft and 319 regional jet and turbo-prop aircraft connecting 200 destinations in North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and Europe. As of December 2008, US Airways employs 33,765 people worldwide and operates 3,130 daily flights (1,312 US Airways Mainline, 1,818 US Airways Express as of December 2008).
The airline merged with America West Airlines in 2005 and the combined airline retained the US Airways name. US Airways also maintains focus city operations at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC, McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, LaGuardia Airport in New York, and Logan International Airport in Boston.
The airline operates the US Airways Shuttle, a US Airways brand which provides hourly service between key Northeastern markets.
Regional airline service is branded as US Airways Express, operated by contract and subsidiary airline companies.
History
Heritage
US Airways traces its history to All American Aviation Company, a company founded by du Pont family brothers Richard C. In 1949, the company was renamed All American Airways as it switched from airmail to passenger service.
The company was again renamed, to Allegheny Airlines, in 1953.
Allegheny expanded progressively, introducing the Douglas DC-9 in 1966 and absorbing Lake Central Airlines in 1968 and Mohawk Airlines in 1972 to become one of the largest carriers in the northeastern United States and sixth largest airline in the world as measured by passenger boardings.
But with expansion came growing pains: by the 1970s Allegheny Airlines had earned the nickname "Agony Air" due to customer dissatisfaction with the carrier's service.
Airbus A330-300 lands at London Heathrow Airport, England
Allegheny's agreement with Henson Airlines, the forerunner to today's US Airways Express carrier Piedmont Airlines, to provide service under the Allegheny Commuter banner, is generally regarded as the industry's first code-share agreement, a type of service now offered throughout the industry.
The birth of USAir
Allegheny changed its name to USAir in 1979 following the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act the previous year, which enabled the airline to expand its route network into the southeastern United States. Later, USAir acquired San Diego-based PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines) and Winston-Salem, NC-based Piedmont Airlines in 1987 and 1988.
At that time, the airline consolidated its headquarters at Washington National Airport into a new building at Crystal City in Arlington County, Virginia, adjacent to National Airport. Maintenance and operations remained based at its Pittsburgh International Airport hub.
Airbus A330-300
USAir was a launch customer for the Boeing 737-300, as the airline needed an aircraft with greater capacity to serve its rapidly growing Florida markets.
USAir was the world's largest operator of DC-9 aircraft at the time and approached McDonnell Douglas to negotiate a new airplane design. However, in the late 1970s, the McDonnell Douglas' proposed successor to the DC-9-50 did not suit USAir's requirements.
After the negotiations with McDonnell Douglas broke down, Boeing came forward with a proposed variant of the 737. While Dayton was a hub for USAir for several years following the Piedmont merger, only Baltimore and Charlotte remained hubs later on.
The company formed partnerships, marketing the Trump Shuttle as the "USAir Shuttle" and accepted a large investment from British Airways that started one of the first transatlantic airline alliances. During this period several 767 aircraft were painted in the British Airways livery, but operated by USAir. It also invested in a new terminal at its hub at Pittsburgh.
In 1996, the alliance between USAir and British Airways ended in a court battle, once British Airways announced its intentions to partner with American Airlines.
That same year, the airline also introduced a single-class subsidiary service known as MetroJet, which competed with low-cost carriers expanding into the East, in particular Southwest Airlines.
On November 6, 1996, just following the re-branding to US Airways, the airline placed an order for up to 400 Airbus A320-series narrow body aircraft, with 120 firm orders at the time of the order signing. At the time, the order was regarded as the largest bulk aircraft request in history.
These orders enabled US Airways to replace its older aircraft with newer, more efficient aircraft, and it helped with the re-branding and repositioning efforts of US Airways.
In 1997 US Airways bought the remains of Trump Shuttle. US Airways also steadily expanded its flights to Europe through the end of the decade.
Northeast and high operating costs prompted calls for the company to merge with another airline.
United/ US Airways - The first failed attempt to merge
On May 24, 2000 US Airways announced plans to be acquired for $4.3 billion by UAL Corp., the parent company of United Airlines, the world's largest commercial carrier at the time. The complex deal drew immediate objections from labor unions, consumer advocates and antitrust regulators.
Negotiations stalled; with both airlines losing money, and the deal all but certain to be blocked by the federal government, UAL withdrew its purchase offer on July 27, 2001, paying US Airways a $50 million penalty for withdrawing from the deal.
2001-2004: September 11th and financial woes
Beginning in 2000, US Airways started retiring aircraft in an attempt to simplify its fleet to lower costs, replacing many of its older planes with the new A320-family aircraft.
As the largest carrier at Washington-Reagan, US Airways was disproportionately impacted by that airport's extended closure following the September 11 terrorist attacks. The resulting financial disaster precipitated the closure of the airline's MetroJet network, which led to the de-hubbing of the subsidiary's primary operating base at Baltimore-Washington International Airport and the furloughing of thousands of employees.
The Allegheny County Airport Authority rejected US Airways' demands for reduced landing fees and lower lease payments, in part due to antitrust and FAA regulations that required the airport operator to extend the same financial terms to all carriers if it accepted US Airways' demands. The airline, led by former America West CEO Doug Parker, continued to demote Pittsburgh International Airport in subsequent years until it became only a focus city airport for the company. Pittsburgh today serves as merely the smallest focus city for US Airways with 56 flights a day, compared to 2001 when it was a fortress hub with 500+ flights a day with service across the country and to Europe.
2004-2005
In August 2004, US Airways attempted to build a Latin American gateway at Ft.
The attempt was largely unsuccessful and short-lived, in part due to Fort Lauderdale’s close proximity to American Airlines’ hub at Miami International Airport and its extensive Latin American network. US Airways also began a process of de-emphasizing its hub-and-spoke system to capitalize on direct flights between major eastern airports such as Washington-Reagan, New York-LaGuardia, and Ft.
This emphasis on more direct flights has been undertaken by many airlines of late, as an attempt to capitalize on highest-profit routes, and is a system modeled after lower-cost Southwest Airlines' operations, a system (ironically) that most U.S. airlines had used until the mid-1980s.
The airline became the 15th member of the Star Alliance on May 4, 2004.
Fuel costs and deadlocked negotiations with organized labor (chiefly the Air Line Pilots Association, that was traditionally the first group to come to a concessionary agreement) forced US Airways into a second round of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection proceedings on September 12, 2004.
The parties held preliminary discussions and conducted due diligence from February through July 2004. The following month, US Airways Group and America West Holdings resumed their discussions.
On May 19, 2005, both airlines officially announced the merger deal, structured as a reverse takeover. The final bid was valued at $10 billion but was withdrawn on January 31, 2007, since US Airways failed to secure backing from Delta's creditors.
The airline has stated that it will no longer pursue a possible takeover of Delta.
Most pre-merger US Airways aircraft were equipped with Verizon Airfone at every row of seats. Since Verizon ended this service, the airline has deactivated the service and as of 2007, has removed the phones or has covered them in all aircraft.
Michael Miller, a member of The Velocity Group, an airline consulting firm, said that he approves of Parker's handling of the merger.
During the night of March 4, 2007, the US Airways and America West computer reservation systems merged. Former America West employees were fully trained and migrated to the old East system on September 25, 2007.
America West Airlines completely merged into the US Airways certificate on September 25, 2007, which formally ended the America West brand.
(Flights numbered 2000-2199 are shuttle services, and those 2200 and higher are operated by express subsidiaries.) Aircraft operated by pre-merger US Airways crews or former America West crews flew under two different United States Department of Transportation operating certificates until September 25, 2007. However, until pilot union groups from both sides successfully negotiate a single contract, each group of pilots will fly only on its pre-merger airlines' aircraft and the flights will be marked accordingly.
Now that the computer systems are merged, former America West-operated flights are marketed as though America West was a wholly owned carrier.
This marketing is common practice for airlines that have code-share agreements with other airlines operating aircraft for feeder or regional routes, and although the practice is uncommon for major airlines, it greatly simplifies the process for passengers connecting between historically US Airways-operated flights and former America West-operated flights.
In summer 2007, US Airways began upgrading its in-flight services, from food and entertainment to the training of flight attendants. A follow-up survey polling a smaller sample size, conducted in April 2007, found that US Airways remained in last place, with its score dropping an additional 10 points. Also in 2007, the Today/Zagat Airline Survey rated US Airways as the worst airline overall in the United States, ranking it 10/30 for comfort, 5/30 for food, 10/30 for service, and 15/30 for its online reservations system. On August 1, 2008, US Airways ceased providing their passengers with free drinks, including water.
Passengers must now purchase bottled water or soda for $2 US, or $1 US for coffee and tea. US Airways has a very poor record of addressing customer complaints, answering only 50% of the telephone calls to its customer service department.
US Airways east pilots took steps to relinquish their ALPA membership and form their own in-house union. Pre-merger US Airways "East" pilots were dissatisfied with the results of binding arbitration when the arbitrator's ruling placed all active former America West pilots, including their most junior pilot, who had been hired only three months previous to the merger, ahead of furloughed US Airways pilots with up to seventeen years of service.
East pilots (3,200) outnumbered west pilots (1,800) and the proposed union's president stated that the union has a sufficient number of requests to call a vote according to National Mediation Board regulations. The new union would be called the US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA). said October 3,2007 it would cut mainline flights at Pittsburgh International Airport to 22 a day from 31 and reduce regional flights to 46 a day from 77, beginning January 6, 2008, essentially reducing the airport to a destination spoke in its network. Pittsburgh is no longer a focus city for the airline as of its most recent annual report and January 2008 flight schedule reductions.
It serves as the nerve center for all of US Airways' nearly 1,400 daily mainline flights.
On September 25, 2007 US Airways was awarded a route by the DOT to serve Beijing from Charlotte via Philadelphia This marks the first direct route to China from Philadelphia, scheduled to begin in March 2009. However, it is anticipated that a prospective United-US Airways merger may re-emerge if the Delta Air Lines-Northwest Airlines merger succeeds.
On May 20, 2008, according to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index by the University of Michigan, US Airways ranked last in customer satisfaction among the major airlines (http:www.eturbonews.com/2588/us-airways-bottom-airline-customer-satisfacti).
On June 6, 2008, US Airways announced that it cannot furlough aging 737 Classic aircraft (as United and Continental have announced) due to minimum fleet size requirements imposed on it by labor unions.
2009
On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 bound for Charlotte, NC "ditched" into the Hudson river after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport.It was believed to be that of a "double bird hit" from a flock of Canada Geese.
Services to South America, Asia and Australia also are offered via the United Airlines codeshare. Likewise, United passengers benefit from increased access via US Airways to the U.S.
If approved, the flights would begin in March 2009 and would utilize Airbus A340 aircraft that would originate in Charlotte using a Boeing 767. On September 25, 2007 The Department of Transportation stated that it tentatively had awarded US Airways the Charlotte-Philadelphia-Beijing route to begin on March 25, 2009, however the airline recently asked the USDOT for permission to delay the flight by one year, partly due to the 2008 fuel crisis.
On November 11, 2007, US Airways announced nonstop service between Philadelphia and London's Heathrow Airport, its first services to the airport. While the three hubs are having a handful of flights cut, the most notable is the major downgrade of Las Vegas to a focus city.
Las Vegas (LAS)
Columbus (CMH) ends March 2
Tampa (TPA) ends March 2
Fleet
US Airways operates a fleet of 356 twinjets, divided between mostly newer Airbus aircraft and generally older Boeing aircraft. As of March 2007, the post-merger airline operated the largest fleet of Airbus aircraft in the world. US Airways has a fleet average age of 12.1 years as of November 2008.
US Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft as of January 16, 2008:
Retired
Retired aircraft flown by USAir or US Airways included:
Fleet organization
A US Airways (formerly America West) Airbus A320, landing at Vancouver International Airport
US Air and US Airways have operated a very varied fleet.
US Airways A320/319s that came from AWA have different engines than pre-merger A320/A319/A321 from US Airways. 757s within the America West fleet differ considerably, for example in the location of the lavatories and the galley configuration.
When fully reclined, the sleeper seats are fully horizontal, forming a bed that is flat. There is also an EmPower power outlet at each of the seats.
These seats do not offer the significant recline of the Sleeper Seats, however on Airbus A330 aircraft, every seat has a personal on-demand video screen attached to the arm rest that offers movies, games and syndicated television shows in multiple languages, and there is an EmPower power outlet at each seat. An EmPower power outlet is available at every first class seat on Airbus aircraft, but is not available on aircraft formerly operated by America West.
Those with a Star Alliance First Class ticket are admitted and also allowed one guest (traveling on a Star Alliance carrier).
Codeshare agreements
US Airways has codeshare agreements with the following airlines as of July 2008:
Note: This list includes Star Alliance (*) partners.
Former agreements
American Airlines (codeshared with US Airways in the 90s)
Big Sky Airlines (ceased operations March 8, 2008)
British Airways (codeshared with both US Airways and America West Airlines at different times)
Caribbean Sun (ceased to exist when the airline shut down on January 31, 2007)
Continental Airlines (codeshared with America West Airlines) and ended the agreement on May 1, 2002, citing low code-shared flight sales.)
Lufthansa (codeshared in the 1990s with US Airways prior to the formation of the Star Alliance with a three-year break until US Airways joined the Star Alliance.)
Qantas (codeshared with both US Airways in the 90s and America West Airlines before the merger; and after the merger with the combined US Airways/America West Airlines and ended the agreement February 28, 2007 due to Qantas being in the competing Oneworld airline alliance)
Northwest Airlines (codeshared with America West Airlines on flights from Asia)
Windward Islands Airways (codeshared with US Airways program has been suspended indefinitely)
Incidents and accidents
The incidents and crashes listed below include only those of US Airways and US Air (and not predecessor or merger airlines such as Allegheny, PSA or America West; or partnering regional commuter airlines operating US Airways flights under the brand US Airways Express).
Community support
Do Crew
The US Airways Do Crew program is the airline's employee community-service program.