US AIR cutting 16% of flights....

[ncligs]

This was in todays Pittsburgh paper about cutting flights...

http://www.postgazette.com/businessnews/20020831usair0831p2.asp


And this was in todays Orlando paper.......

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/busi...083102aug31.story?coll=orl-business-headlines

 

[DebbieB]

Article on reductions:

http://www.usairways.com/about/press/nw_02_0830.htm

They have a chart to download that lists the cuts. PIT-MCO is going from 6 to 5 daily flights, MCO-PIT from 6 to 4. I hope they don't change our December flights. They are FF tickets and we probably will not have much flexibility in changing them. They have not revised the timetable on the site yet.

 

[ncligs]

Debbie,

Our flights in Feb(14th) are non-stop leaving Pittsburgh at 9:20 am. We are keeping our fingers crossed to.

 

[LISALISA36]

i just tryed to book a flight from dayton to mco on us air and they said no flights from dayton to mco for next may.
crazy!!!!! thats who we flew last year.

 

[DebbieB]

You should be able to get a connection through Pittsburgh or Charlotte from Dayton. No non-stops. I just tried it for May 7 to 14 and flights came up, I got a price of $207.50.

 

[LISALISA36]

i will try again... from day to mco the computer said no flights to mco on us air.com.
let me do it again.
thanks,
lisa

 

[LISALISA36]

yes, it worked must have been a computer error.
thank you
622.00 for 3 tickets

 

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

A big sigh of relief here. They aren't making the cuts until November 2. DW and I were worried the cuts might be soon and affect our Sept 17-23 trip.

Richmond came out easy. US Airways has a big presence here (about 1 in 3 departures). We only lost 1 departure overall, and that looks to be a regional jet to Norfolk (I guess Richmond is a stop between Norfolk and a hub). Lost two to Charlotte but gained two to LaGuardia (US Airways must be trying to fight Airtran's flights from nearby Newport News to LaGuardia).

Keeping my fingers crossed for everyone that your flights won't be affected.

 

[chirurgeon]

I spoke to US Air last night and they said the new schedule will be up on Sunday (tomorrow) morning. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We are booked on the 9:20 am flight to MCO Dec 2 and the 7:10 pm flight home to Pittsburgh. I have already had the 5:00 pm return flight cancelled since I first booked the trip. A friend at work used to work for USAir and he said he didn't think they would cut the last flight of the day out of Orlando, I'm just hoping they don't cancel the morning flight since this is the third flight out of Pittsburgh. Mom and I don't feel like getting to the airport at 5 in the morning for the 7:30 flight.

Kim

 

[3kidsdisney]

We are flying from Phila. to orlando oct14, home on the 21st. We were sent aletter 2 weeks ago saying our flights were already changed, no big deal though, there was only a 20 minute change in flight times. I think if you are flying soon, you would havealready heard about any changes,,, atleast I hope so.

 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

Heard about this on the news today. Some job losses in Pittsburgh (I know a couple people who work for US Air - they are all worried that they will loose their jobs). Wonder which Orlando flights we'll get cut? I'm guessing the 7:45AM or 11:35AM flights to MCO, and the 5:55AM and 2:40PM flights back to PIT. Anyone else have any guesses?

 

[DebbieB]

I hope not the 11:35, we like that flight. You don't have to get up so early and you get to WDW right at check-in time. It's usually full, last time they were looking for 3 or 4 volunteers to get bumped to 2:30. My guess is it may be one of the evening flights - 6:00 or 8:55. Who wants to go at 8:55pm? Maybe change it to an inbetween time. That's another possibility, they may change flight times to bridge gaps. We were scheduled for the 9:30 3 or 4 years ago and about a month before they changed it to 10:30. Coming back, I would bet on one of those early morning flights and maybe 1:00. Eliminating 2:40 would leave a big gap between 1:00 and 7:20.

 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

Yeah, I wish they would make that 8:55 flight earlier. We are going to be taking it (argh, not my choice!).

We were booked on the 7:30AM a couple years ago, then it switched to 8:45AM (US1879), I liked those flight times!

Basicly my guesses of flights were based on the current aircraft running that route. USAirways probably will adjust the flight times of the flights left so that they can catch connections easily from other cities in the northeast.

 

[DebbieB]

That's another part of the puzzle, they will be selling or leasing all of their 757's, which is a common aircraft for PIT-MCO. Hopefully they will replace them with A321's, but if they use 737's or A319's that will cut down on seats available.

 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

Oh, I didn't hear about the 757's! I love flying on those! I'll have to check that article on usairways.com to see if it says anything about it on there. I always thought they'd phase out the 737-300/400 before the 757's...

 

[DebbieB]

I'm not sure where I read that, it may have been in the newspaper in the last week. They only have 33 of them and it's part of their strategy to downsize the fleet. They are also getting rid of some 737's. When they started buying airbusses, the strategy was to phase out all of their Boeings to just have 1 manufacturer that they could interchange parts & crew training.

 

[A kid at heart]

Remember this is all subject to change!There are also schedule changes coming up next one is in oct. The queue teams are working those flights right now.I was at lunch with a few of them today and we were talking about this very subject.
The 7:35 am flight is always booked. The afternoon ones are the last to get booked. they already condensed the two 9 am flights into one.
We've gotten so much stuff from usairways in the past 2 weeks, that its a ngihtmare trying to get it all it all sorted out. And one fax will say one thing then 2 other faxes will come in and say something else.
http://www.usairways.com/travel/current_operations/sked_change.pdf

This showshow many flights each city has now and what all was cut. (as in how many flights lost)

http://www.usairways.com/about/aircraft/index.htm
this shows the aircrafts theat they have, as you can see, some of the airbuses are huge! They can and will use some of these for the heavier markets, even if they did get rid of a flight, they can use the bigger aircraft and still take the same amount of passengers. Instead of using an aircraft that only takes like 145 they can use an aircraft that transports 266 at a time.

 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

A kid at heart, I flew on US1504 in July (7:45AM PIT-MCO), and I actually had an empty seat beside me! First time I have ever seen an empty seat on that route! There were actually quite a few empty seats scattered throughout the plane (coach), and of the 26 first class seats, 3 were taken and 23 were open.

 

[dtuleya]

We have flights from BWI to MCO connecting in CLT both ways on November 22 & 29, 2002. I received an email three days ago stating that our last leg from CLT to BWI got bumped back about 30 minutes. We now have an almost 2 hour layover at the airport. Guess we'll just have to eat a late big breakfast at Chef Mickey's that morning, a light snack before we board and then a late dinner at the airport. I'm just glad to still have a seat!

 

[DebbieB]

I just checked USAir's timetables and they have the revised times up, this is for Dec 6 to 13:

PIT/MCO - 9:15, 11:55, 1:05, 8:45, 10:10
MCO/PIT - 8:30, 9:50, 12:35, 5:10

They are all 757 flights (except 10:10pm), so they must be keeping them for now.

I'm surprised they have 2 late evening, I guess more people than you think go then.

Luckily our flights are still there - 11:35 moved to 11:55 and 1:00 return moved to 12:35.

The announcement said Nov 2, but it looks like they made some changes in October too.