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Christmas Nightmare For US Airways And Its Passengers

December 26, 2004
US Airways, bankrupt and struggling to survive, subjected its customers to hundreds of cancelled flights and thousands of pieces of stranded luggage Christmas weekend. While the severe winter weather in the Midwest was a major factor, the large number of US Airways employees who called in sick compounded the problems.

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A spokesman for the airline said US Airways canceled 176 flights on Friday and 143 flights on Christmas day, attributing the problems to "an unusually high number" of flight attendants and other airline employees taking sick days. Neither the company nor the union said there was an organized work stoppage or sick out.

Airline analysts say the problem was more likely the result of an angry and embittered workforce, forced to give back contract benefits in order to keep the airline operating.

The problems began on Thursday, when luggage began to pile up at the airline's main hub in Philadelphia because of bad weather in other parts of the country. With employees calling in sick, US Airways found itself short handed and unable to get caught up.

A huge backlog of bags that began in Philadelphia grew worse as the holiday travel period and the worker shortage intensified. The airline responded by calling in temporary workers and managers, and at one point was forced to fly five planeloads of baggage to points throughout the east, just to get caught up.

US Airways wasn't the only airline having problems. Comair cancelled all 1,100 of its flights Christmas Day after its system crashed, sending 30,000 passengers scrambling for other connections.

US Airways problems, however, snarled airline traffic on what is ordinarily a very hectic travel period anyway. Federal transportation officials made it clear they were not pleased. The U.S. Transportation Department ordered airline executives to straighten out its operational problems and get back on schedule.

A spokesman for Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said the agency would look into why so many US Airways employees called in sick. The spokesman said officials believe the number of sick calls would have had to be massive to cause the cancellation of so many flights.

The holiday travel disruptions could not have come at a worse time for the airline, which days before had secured major contract concessions from its customer service and gate employees. US Airways was forced to cut its payroll as a condition for obtaining the financing it needs to emerge from bankruptcy.

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