WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bankrupt US Airways late Saturday blamed more than 300 canceled flights and thousands of pieces of stranded luggage on the aftereffects of a heavy winter storm and large numbers of workers who called in sick during the crucial holiday travel period.þþSeparately, Delta Air Lines said the storm, which buried parts of the Midwest, caused a computer outage at the Cincinnati operating base of express partner Comair on Christmas Day. Roughly 1,100 flights were grounded. The regional airline is expected to operate on a limited schedule throughout the remainder of the weekend, the company said.þþThe disruption to thousands of travelers on troubled US Airways had the carrier scrambling and caught the attention of the U.S. Transportation Department, which told the airline to quickly straighten out its operations and its labor shortages.þþThe company and unions say there was no organized ``sick out,'' but workers at the seventh-largest domestic airline are bitter about huge wage and benefit cuts the company says are needed for the airline to survive. They are also angry at how the company has been managed through two bankruptcies in two years.þþSenior Transportation Department officials, clearly irritated, kept unusually close tabs on US Airways operations as the weekend progressed.þþ``The secretary (Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta) is not happy about it and wants it taken care of,'' said Mineta spokesman Robert Johnson. He said the agency would look very closely at why so many employees called in sick at the height of the holiday rush.þþUS Airways canceled 176 flights on Friday and 143 flights on Saturday mainly due to ``an unusually high number'' of flight attendants and other workers calling in sick, said Amy Kudwa, an airline spokeswoman.þþA huge backlog of bags that began at US Airways primary hub in Philadelphia on Thursday because of the bad weather grew worse as the holiday travel period and the worker shortage intensified.þþKudwa did not have a figure on sick calls, but hundreds of workers would have to miss work to affect more than 300 flights and leave thousands of bags unattended.þþUS Airways called in managers and other volunteers from its labor pool to handle bags and keep flights going. The airline flew five planes loaded only with luggage to relieve the backlog of stranded bags throughout the East.þþ``People across the operation are working around the clock to get the operation back on track,'' Kudwa said.þþKudwa said the airline did not believe the sick calls were part of a job action to protest concessions. However, US Airways took extra measures during the Thanksgiving holiday period to ensure that enough workers were on the job and there were no notable problems.þþAny admission by the company that unions were purposely disrupting flights could have an adverse impact on future bookings. This holiday travel period is critical for the airline to show customers, creditors and the bankruptcy court that it is capable of operating normally during its reorganization.þþMost of the more than 20,000 union workers at the seventh-largest airline are facing massive, permanent pay and benefit cuts to help the airline fly. US Airways has said it will probably have to liquidate in mid-January if it cannot wring nearly $1 billion in yearly cost cuts from its union workers.þþPilots, customer service workers and smaller unions have ratified concession deals totaling more than $430 million, while flight attendants have reached a tentative deal for $94 million in givebacks. Mechanics and baggage handlers, however, continue to negotiate with no agreement in sight.þþA federal bankruptcy judge is scheduled to rule Jan. 6 on the company's request to throw out the contracts of any union that has not agreed to concessions by that time.þþA spokesman for the International Association of Machinists said he was unaware of any sick calls and said there was no organized job action.þþ
Source: NY Times
