Comments on: US Airways and the Death of the Vegas Hub http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/ Thu, 24 May 2012 15:59:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Beads http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-114656 Beads Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:28:04 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-114656 Their nonstops from Midway were cheap and reasonably scheduled, crews were friendly, and every passenger always got a packet of goodies (candies, Mardi Gras beads, pom poms) presented in an old-school casino coin holder. Their nonstops from Midway were cheap and reasonably scheduled, crews were friendly, and every passenger always got a packet of goodies (candies, Mardi Gras beads, pom poms) presented in an old-school casino coin holder.

]]> By: Josh http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-71022 Josh Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:04:47 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-71022 This really doesn't come as much of a surprise. JFK lost more money than only four of the 29 destinations offered mainline from LAS. The loss of almost $7 million on the segment in 2008Q3 accounted for about 5% of US's mainline losses at LAS. Three of the other four cities were US hubs. Those hubs contributed a combined loss of $46.5 million; about 33.1% of the hub's losses. In case you're wondering, the mystery fourth city is BOS.... which I wouldn't be surprised to see it get the axe either. PDX and CMH shared the award for worst route by margin PDX and BWI each lost about $5 million on their respective segments. These are particularly poor performers, but US didn't make a dime on one mainline segment out of LAS in Q3.... the very best route by margin, LAS-LAX - had a margin of -25.67%! This really doesn’t come as much of a surprise. JFK lost more money than only four of the 29 destinations offered mainline from LAS. The loss of almost $7 million on the segment in 2008Q3 accounted for about 5% of US’s mainline losses at LAS. Three of the other four cities were US hubs. Those hubs contributed a combined loss of $46.5 million; about 33.1% of the hub’s losses. In case you’re wondering, the mystery fourth city is BOS…. which I wouldn’t be surprised to see it get the axe either. PDX and CMH shared the award for worst route by margin PDX and BWI each lost about $5 million on their respective segments. These are particularly poor performers, but US didn’t make a dime on one mainline segment out of LAS in Q3…. the very best route by margin, LAS-LAX – had a margin of -25.67%!

]]> By: Robert S http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-70766 Robert S Sat, 21 Feb 2009 06:29:34 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-70766 Ah, the late night HP LAS experience. It was at its craziest when they were running 747s LAS-JFK. And overbook heaven (or hell). I remember a guy who was bumped off a late night departure; he kicked a jetway door in anger, shattered the glass, then was led away by cops a few minutes later. Ah, the late night HP LAS experience. It was at its craziest when they were running 747s LAS-JFK. And overbook heaven (or hell). I remember a guy who was bumped off a late night departure; he kicked a jetway door in anger, shattered the glass, then was led away by cops a few minutes later.

]]> By: Eric http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-70743 Eric Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:01:58 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-70743 ROTFL...the 'crew hauler' to PHX....man what a circus! Tracking down 83 nonrevs who are at the bar keeping their buzz up or playing slots to recoup their losses lol. On a larger scale, the death of LAS is pretty epic. When you have to close half the airport to keep costs under control....that says something. ROTFL…the ‘crew hauler’ to PHX….man what a circus! Tracking down 83 nonrevs who are at the bar keeping their buzz up or playing slots to recoup their losses lol.

On a larger scale, the death of LAS is pretty epic. When you have to close half the airport to keep costs under control….that says something.

]]> By: Jordan W http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-70728 Jordan W Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:45:56 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-70728 One more thing. HP was a special airline. Like no other in US History! Having worked for AA, UL and SN prior. I can say this without a doubt! I missed out the aborted landing at PHX. Gosh. Im sure there are millions of stories we can tell. How fun to share on here. Thanks One more thing. HP was a special airline. Like no other in US History! Having worked for AA, UL and SN prior. I can say this without a doubt!

I missed out the aborted landing at PHX. Gosh. Im sure there are millions of stories we can tell.

How fun to share on here. Thanks

]]> By: Jordan W http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-70727 Jordan W Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:41:38 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-70727 Wow, talk about tales from another lifetime.....haha. I worked for HP back in the mid 90s...and probably non rev'd on them at least 80-100 times, during my short 6 month stint with them!.. I was always heading off somewhere. LAS. The seventh circle of hell!... Yes, well at midnight for sure. Lunchtime was more depressing.... Too many fun stories. LAX-LAS Always a quick fun flight. LAS-PHX midnights.. I always slept. Im not surprised that they (US) has dropped JFK. US Airways needs to just die. It should have been shot back in the late 80s, early 90s. And how can I ever forget my LAS-CMH overnight. We were heading from LA - MIA, via las, cmh and ewr. They had a drinks trolley left over from an earlier flight. We had First to ourselves. We stripped the booze cart bare ...with permission from the FA's. By the time we landed in CMH. We could barely crawl off the plane. How they let us on for EWR, beats me. Lets just say. We were in noooo fit state to continue on MIA, and headed into Manhattan to get a hotel. Still a great trip! From 95-2000. I was a top tier frequent flyler with HP. And I use to fly the JFK-LAS route alot in F Class. Always an amazingly good flight. Fond memories. And one of my all time domestic favs. LAS-JFK. I walk onboard, and sitting in 2A is some over the top, fur and diamond clad lady. So Im like "oh god" Im gonna just sleep. She puts her kids in 3AB to sleep....and we end up chatting the whole flight. She tells me stories about Russia and her travels...amazing!!! To end on a low note, that I can now laugh about. My JFK-LAS flight one pre christmas day was delayed. (Dec 22 2000) By the time I made it into LAS...my connection to LAX was in shambles. Alot of confusion, and whatnot, so I sauntered over to the gate 2 hours later, cause Im told the flight is still 2 hours away. Low and Behold. My LAX flight is boarding. So I rush down the jetbridge...and the biggest gate agent bitch of all time greets me. Snatches my boarding pass...and tells me to take any open seat in coach. My hands were full of teddy bears (In large bags) that I was taking onwards to London after LA, so I wanted the overhead space in First. Coach was packed. I told the gate agent that I had a confirmed seat in F, any other time, I would have just gone back into Coach, but that was not gonna work this time. She went nuts, and started screaming at me. Even though my boarding pass denotes I was a tope level HP customer. For the second time in my life, I had an out of body expereince, and completely lost it. We were screaming at each other for 10 minutes. Everyone in the open 757 coach cabin fell silent... Flight attendant "chris" came out, recognized me, pulled me onto the plane gently (no joke). I was always on her flights for some reason, and totally took care of me. I noticed she was removing a non rev out of 1B for me. I stopped her and said no. Just accomodate my bags in the overheads of First and Ill go into coach. NOTHING is worse than being a non-rev; being removed from First!. I remembered those days, and would not allow it! As I turned to store my bags and head to the back...... Turns out, First was not full.. The lady in seat 2B had placed her handbag on 2A, and the dumb gate agent wrote it off as it being occupied by a person! hmmmm! Great seat counting job! During the flight, I went into the gallery and chatted with Chris for about 5 minutes. Apologizing for my outburst. She was so cool. Back in those days. HP gave their premier flyers 6 coupons to give out to HP employees, when they had gone above and beyond. One Coupon, would redeem into Tumi luggage or a trip to Hawaii. Pretty huge gifts. i had 4 left. It was the end of the year, since I was flying Virgin out of LA. I thanked Chris for all her great service over the few years..and gave her all 4! Never flew HP again after that flight come to think of it. Switched my FF to CO...and used the 30,000 miles HP sent me as an apology on CO! Anyho. Still fond memories of HP :) Wow, talk about tales from another lifetime…..haha. I worked for HP back in the mid 90s…and probably non rev’d on them at least 80-100 times, during my short 6 month stint with them!.. I was always heading off somewhere. LAS. The seventh circle of hell!… Yes, well at midnight for sure. Lunchtime was more depressing…. Too many fun stories. LAX-LAS Always a quick fun flight. LAS-PHX midnights.. I always slept. Im not surprised that they (US) has dropped JFK. US Airways needs to just die. It should have been shot back in the late 80s, early 90s. And how can I ever forget my LAS-CMH overnight. We were heading from LA – MIA, via las, cmh and ewr. They had a drinks trolley left over from an earlier flight. We had First to ourselves. We stripped the booze cart bare …with permission from the FA’s. By the time we landed in CMH. We could barely crawl off the plane. How they let us on for EWR, beats me. Lets just say. We were in noooo fit state to continue on MIA, and headed into Manhattan to get a hotel. Still a great trip!

From 95-2000. I was a top tier frequent flyler with HP. And I use to fly the JFK-LAS route alot in F Class. Always an amazingly good flight. Fond memories. And one of my all time domestic favs. LAS-JFK. I walk onboard, and sitting in 2A is some over the top, fur and diamond clad lady. So Im like “oh god” Im gonna just sleep. She puts her kids in 3AB to sleep….and we end up chatting the whole flight. She tells me stories about Russia and her travels…amazing!!!

To end on a low note, that I can now laugh about. My JFK-LAS flight one pre christmas day was delayed. (Dec 22 2000) By the time I made it into LAS…my connection to LAX was in shambles. Alot of confusion, and whatnot, so I sauntered over to the gate 2 hours later, cause Im told the flight is still 2 hours away. Low and Behold. My LAX flight is boarding. So I rush down the jetbridge…and the biggest gate agent bitch of all time greets me. Snatches my boarding pass…and tells me to take any open seat in coach. My hands were full of teddy bears (In large bags) that I was taking onwards to London after LA, so I wanted the overhead space in First. Coach was packed. I told the gate agent that I had a confirmed seat in F, any other time, I would have just gone back into Coach, but that was not gonna work this time.

She went nuts, and started screaming at me. Even though my boarding pass denotes I was a tope level HP customer.

For the second time in my life, I had an out of body expereince, and completely lost it. We were screaming at each other for 10 minutes. Everyone in the open 757 coach cabin fell silent… Flight attendant “chris” came out, recognized me, pulled me onto the plane gently (no joke). I was always on her flights for some reason, and totally took care of me.

I noticed she was removing a non rev out of 1B for me. I stopped her and said no. Just accomodate my bags in the overheads of First and Ill go into coach. NOTHING is worse than being a non-rev; being removed from First!. I remembered those days, and would not allow it! As I turned to store my bags and head to the back……

Turns out, First was not full.. The lady in seat 2B had placed her handbag on 2A, and the dumb gate agent wrote it off as it being occupied by a person! hmmmm! Great seat counting job!

During the flight, I went into the gallery and chatted with Chris for about 5 minutes. Apologizing for my outburst. She was so cool. Back in those days. HP gave their premier flyers 6 coupons to give out to HP employees, when they had gone above and beyond. One Coupon, would redeem into Tumi luggage or a trip to Hawaii. Pretty huge gifts. i had 4 left. It was the end of the year, since I was flying Virgin out of LA. I thanked Chris for all her great service over the few years..and gave her all 4!

Never flew HP again after that flight come to think of it. Switched my FF to CO…and used the 30,000 miles HP sent me as an apology on CO!

Anyho. Still fond memories of HP :)

]]> By: yo http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-70726 yo Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:59:36 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-70726 I was on the very first PHX-LAS 747 flight going PHX-LAS-HNL. It was 2nd day of service for the 747. What a mess! By the time the attendants got up and served half the plane, we were on final. Strange flight, did it a few times, back then, the FA's would fill an air sickness bag with mini alcohol bottles (liquor was free) for non-rev's to get you a good start on Vegas. Of course, if you then went on to HNL, you had to deplane, and hope like hell you made the flight, because in LAS, non reving was subject to "Vegas Rules". From the 747 to the Dash 8 LAS-GCN-FLG-PHX, those were the days, and I'm glad I was a part of it. I was on the very first PHX-LAS 747 flight going PHX-LAS-HNL. It was 2nd day of service for the 747. What a mess! By the time the attendants got up and served half the plane, we were on final. Strange flight, did it a few times, back then, the FA’s would fill an air sickness bag with mini alcohol bottles (liquor was free) for non-rev’s to get you a good start on Vegas. Of course, if you then went on to HNL, you had to deplane, and hope like hell you made the flight, because in LAS, non reving was subject to “Vegas Rules”.

From the 747 to the Dash 8 LAS-GCN-FLG-PHX, those were the days, and I’m glad I was a part of it.

]]> By: Ari http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-70717 Ari Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:06:27 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-70717 Great post! Great post!

]]> By: Tom S http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-70716 Tom S Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:57:54 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-70716 Oh, those Tuesday early evening PHX-LAS flights. It gave you about 3.5 good hours of drinking, buffets, and gambling. It is stuff of HP legend. The LAS-PHX flight at midnight (or 1 am, or 2 am, depending on the delay that day), was great. HP employees just waiting around impatiently while the gate agents started calling off 4-5 names at a time. Great times with some great people. I also remember the morning after.....with half of the department just dragging a$$ because they didn't get home until 3 am, and were working off a hangover with maybe 4 hours of sleep. All in all, the most touching post I have ever read on this site. Oh, those Tuesday early evening PHX-LAS flights. It gave you about 3.5 good hours of drinking, buffets, and gambling. It is stuff of HP legend. The LAS-PHX flight at midnight (or 1 am, or 2 am, depending on the delay that day), was great. HP employees just waiting around impatiently while the gate agents started calling off 4-5 names at a time. Great times with some great people. I also remember the morning after…..with half of the department just dragging a$$ because they didn’t get home until 3 am, and were working off a hangover with maybe 4 hours of sleep.

All in all, the most touching post I have ever read on this site.

]]> By: Shannon G http://crankyflier.com/2009/02/18/us-airways-death-of-vegas-hub/comment-page-1/#comment-70715 Shannon G Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:45:57 +0000 http://crankyflier.com/?p=2138#comment-70715 Former US/HP emp here. I recall taking the"non-rev express" LAS back to PHX on Sunday night/Monday morning on good ol' 908 (757 from he!!) Knowing all the sounds that it should make(and not make) We took off and it took forever for the flaps to be pulled up and the gear had to be cycled about 3 times before they went up. When we got to PHX the thrust reversers didn't work and we landed to the east as short as possible( a few feet short of 24th Street) and rolled all the way down to the end of the runway(Southwest hangar!) Needless to say, 908 was in the hangar the next morning. You've never seen so many white knuckles on a plane full of non-revs. Ah... memories. PS-Just flew US PHX-SEA RT for the first time in about a year The 319's didn't have A/V anymore and all Fleather seats. The F/A's have to work on those now don't they? Former US/HP emp here. I recall taking the”non-rev express” LAS back to PHX on Sunday night/Monday morning on good ol’ 908 (757 from he!!) Knowing all the sounds that it should make(and not make) We took off and it took forever for the flaps to be pulled up and the gear had to be cycled about 3 times before they went up. When we got to PHX the thrust reversers didn’t work and we landed to the east as short as possible( a few feet short of 24th Street) and rolled all the way down to the end of the runway(Southwest hangar!) Needless to say, 908 was in the hangar the next morning. You’ve never seen so many white knuckles on a plane full of non-revs.
Ah… memories.

PS-Just flew US PHX-SEA RT for the first time in about a year The 319′s didn’t have A/V anymore and all Fleather seats. The F/A’s have to work on those now don’t they?

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