Over the strenuous objections of its pilots, US Airways is proceeding with its plan to eliminate more than 250 jobs at La Guardia Airport, which has long been the nexus of the airline’s shuttle service in the Northeast.þþThe pilots’ union, the US Airline Pilots Association, is considering taking its plea to passengers as early as this week by warning the airline’s customers at La Guardia of potential risks to the shuttle’s once-vaunted reliability, Capt. James Ray, a spokesman for the union in Charlotte, N.C., said in an interview. Under US Airways’ plan, none of the crews and planes used for the shuttle routes between La Guardia and Boston and Washington will be based at La Guardia or Boston Logan Airport by the middle of next year. þþ“There’s no way they can continue the reliability of that product, basing the equipment and personnel in another city,” Captain Ray said. Bad weather in Philadelphia or Washington could hamper the airline’s ability to deliver planes and crews to La Guardia or Logan, Captain Ray added.þþMorgan Durrant, a spokesman for the airline, disputed Captain Ray’s assertions and said that the decision to close the bases was final.þþ“The decisions to do all these things are borne out of the need to get the company profitable again,” Mr. Durrant said. “We’re confident we can continue to be reliable. The nice thing about our operation is that if we’re in a pinch and we need a crew, we can fairly quickly get a crew in place.”þþBut doing so will be more of a challenge after the crew bases close. The changes at La Guardia will eliminate 261 jobs there, according to a notice US Airways filed with the state’s Labor Department. Some of those jobs will be transferred to other cities, but Mr. Durrant said it was too soon to say how many.þþThe airline plans to close its crew base in New York at the end of January and its base in Boston in early May, leaving the employees to find jobs at other US Airways hubs, like Philadelphia or Charlotte. The plan to close the bases is a result of US Airways’ agreement to swap many of its takeoff and landing rights at La Guardia with Delta Airlines for some of Delta’s slots at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington. The pilots’ union has asked the federal Department of Justice to review that deal, contending that it would be anti-competitive.þþUS Airways also plans to switch the planes that fly between La Guardia and Logan from Airbus jets, which have 124 seats, to smaller regional jets known as Embraer 190s, which have 99 seats, arrayed in rows of two on each side of the aisle. þþ“Business travelers hate regional jets,” said Joe Brancatelli, editor of JoeSentMe, a Web site dedicated to air travel. “The more you downsize the equipment, the more people feel it’s not worth it to fly.”þþMr. Brancatelli added that he did not see the US Airways shuttle or its competitor, the Delta shuttle, as a true shuttle service anymore. They no longer can be counted on to have a plane ready to depart every hour, and the walk-up price for a one-way ticket has soared to as much as $400, he said.þþDependability has always been the main selling point of the US Airways shuttle, which until 1989 was operated by the now-defunct Eastern Airlines, then briefly flew as Donald Trump’s Trump Shuttle before that venture failed. For years, the shuttle appealed to business travelers by offering hourly flights with reasonable walk-up fares and promising to roll out an additional plane if the first filled up.þþA lack of seats has not been a problem lately, as many of the shuttle flights are less than half-full. But one shuttle regular, Arthur Hogan, said on Friday that he had noticed fewer seats were going empty now than a year ago.þþ“It’s a great barometer for economic activity,” said Mr. Hogan, an executive with Jefferies & Company, a financial firm, who commutes from a Boston suburb to Manhattan every week. “A year ago, the load factors were significantly lower and you could feel it.”þþMr. Hogan, who usually flies on the Delta shuttle but occasionally chooses US Airways, said he would be concerned about the effect winter weather might have on the service if the crews and planes were based in another city.þþ“This time of year the one thing that cuts into their reliability is when you start getting weather,” Mr. Hogan said. Any falloff in the shuttle’s dependability, and more travelers like him will switch to the Amtrak Acela train service, which has been cutting into the shuttle ridership, he said.þþStill, Rick Seaney, the chief executive of FareCompare.com, a travel Web site, said some good could come from the US Airways changes. “Maybe the silver lining is that nobody will have a middle seat anymore,” Mr. Seaney said. þ
Source: NY Times
