PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Union leaders at US Airways blame thin staffing for the carrier's weekend ``operational meltdown,'' but the airline is contending that large numbers of workers decided to call in sick.þþOperations at the bankrupt company returned to near-normal on Monday with worker groups citing bad planning for the nightmarish holiday travel weekend. They denied workers had staged a ``sickout'' to penalize the company for slashing their pay.þþUS Airways Group Inc. was forced to cancel hundreds of flights and strand thousands of passengers between Thursday and Sunday because about triple the usual number of flight attendants called in sick.þþU.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta asked the agency's inspector general to investigate the problems at US Airways, and equally disastrous delays over the holidays at another airline, Delta subsidiary Comair, which had to ground 1,100 flights on Saturday because of a computer problem.þþKentucky-based Comair said it would be later this week before its operations return to normal.þþAdding to US Airways' woes, an unusually high number of baggage handlers at Philadelphia's airport failed to report to work, the airline said, and the remaining staff became overwhelmed by a mountain of luggage. The company was still working Monday to try to reunite people with their bags.þþUnion representatives insisted, though, that chronic understaffing by the bankrupt airline was to blame, rather than any stealth job action by disgruntled employees.þþ``We are so short staffed, if there is spit on the runway in Philadelphia, it causes a fiasco,'' said Teddy Xidas, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Association of Flight Attendants. ``Any mishap or bump in the road causes a disaster. It's just the nature of operations there.''þþMolly McCarthy, the president of the union's Philadelphia local, acknowledged that there was a spike in the number of people who called in sick but denied that it was much worse than other holiday seasons.þþ``There's not a major corporation or airline out there that doesn't have an increase in sick calls over the holidays, sometimes for no other reason than it's flu season,'' she said. ``But other airlines had people call out sick, and didn't have these problems.''þþThe last holiday staffing crisis for US Airways came in 2001, when the airline was forced to cancel almost 200 flights, including 125 on Christmas Day, because too many flight attendants called in sick.þþOf about 1,675 flight attendants scheduled to work Thursday, Friday and Saturday, about 300 called in sick daily, more than expected based on past holidays, US Airways spokesman Chris Chiames said. The carrier usually plans for about 100 such absences.þþ``To suggest it was somehow a staffing issue on our part is to shift attention away from the ... employees who chose to do this,'' Chiames said.þþAlarm bells about a looming staffing crisis in Philadelphia apparently began sounding at least five days before Christmas and two days before snow began causing flight disruptions in Indiana and Ohio.þþ``I would not fly through (Philadelphia) this weekend,'' one Internet poster warned on Dec. 20 in a forum frequented by airline employees on the Web site USaviation.com.þþA wave of US Airways baggage handlers, he warned, were likely to skip work over the holidays, either because they were upset with the struggling company's latest proposals to trim pay and benefits, or because they were planning to retire and were using up spare sick days.þþ``There should be a lot of employees spending Christmas at home instead of on the ramp,'' the Internet poster wrote.þþBy Thursday, the worst predictions appeared to be coming true.þþOther US Airways employees reported receiving desperate appeals from managers asking for help filling in for missing colleagues.þþXidas sent an e-mail to union members on Dec. 23, urging them to volunteer to come into work on their days off, despite any ill feelings they may have over contract proposals.þþ``This is tough right now,'' she wrote. ``Sick calls are in the hundreds, and if we lose money and cancel flights, it won't matter what we ratify. There won't be anything left to salvage.''þþUS Airways has been trying to cut costs to avoid liquidation.þþReservations and gate agents reluctantly approved a new contract Thursday that will cut their pay by 13 percent. Flight attendants are in the midst of phone balloting to decide whether to accept a contract with a 9 percent pay cut. Balloting is expected to end Jan. 5. The pilots' union previously ratified a new deal.þþTwo of the airline's employee groups are still negotiating. US Airways has asked baggage handlers to accept a contract with $100 million in pay and benefits cuts. Mechanics have been asked to make $254 million in concessions.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
