This is a pretty dead week in terms of news, so I figured I’d pull out some lighter stories. One of our Cranky Concierge clients, let’s call him George Bailey, had an almost comically-terrible interaction with Orbitz customer service, and I thought I’d show it here.

George is in the middle of a holiday trip where the flight out was on United and the return on US Airways. It was booked on Orbitz, but he had two problems. The first was that his United Mileage Plus numbers weren’t showing up right with US Airways, and second was that after his upgrade cleared on United, that flight disappeared from the Orbitz reservation.

For the Mileage Plus numbers, I called US Airways directly and the airline had them showing up as Dividend Miles numbers. They fixed how Orbitz had inputted it and everything was fine. For the upgrade problem, this has happened a lot with United lately. It shows up fine in United’s system, and that’s all that matters. In other words, George’s reservation was fine all the way through. But the lack of good communication from Orbitz just made things worse.

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Seems like a pretty clear email, right? Where is the outbound flight?

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The response is clearly a form letter (“Dear Orbitz Customer”) and in no way addresses the issue at hand, so it’s time to try again.

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Again, a straightforward email. But this time, he gets a personalized response from someone different.

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Just reading this email made me want to reach through the computer. George never said anything about a return flight not being there. The outbound is missing. Is basic comprehension that hard?

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So he gives it a shot once again.

Holy crap. Other than a passing mention of the real problem here, it’s not addressed. Instead, she gets distracted by the now-resolved Mileage Plus issue incorrectly saying that there are US Airways Dividend Miles numbers in the reservation. Not true.

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One last effort to explain things.

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Ah, the dreaded supervisor. I’m not sure what these regular agents are there for, because this question could have been answered about 100 times over, but it wasn’t. What a pain.

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Really, all he needed was that last paragraph, but at least there was finally an end here. The good news is that United had everything looking right for his United reservation (he had no troubles on the flight out) and US Airways has everything set for his US Airways reservation, so it’s all good.

But what a frustrating customer service experience.

Every time I bring up the idea of US Airways buying American, I hear gasps of horror at the mere mention. (See Gary Leff’s piece yesterday for an example.) But in my mind, there would be nothing more exciting than seeing US Airways buy American out of bankruptcy and turn into a new, powerhouse American Airlines. I shake my head at people who thought American should have bought US Airways before just for the sake of merging. That would have made no sense. This, however, would be a great move.

The first thing to clear up is the basic philosophy. You’re not going to see American turn into US Airways if this happens, though you’ll hear plenty of speculation along those lines. The management team isn’t tied to any model in particular; it’s tied to making the best out of each situation. When this same team came from America West to take over the old US Airways, it realized that its best hubs still couldn’t match the revenue production of the power hubs that the Big 3 operated. So it had to focus on keeping costs down in order to remain profitable.

That is not the case at American. This would look more like American than US Airways when all was said and done. In fact, I’m sure it would still be called American and you’d probably still see the headquarters in Dallas Ft Worth. If this sounds similar to when US Airways tried to take over Delta, it is. We just never got to see what they could have done with Delta.

What would they do with American? There are so many things that run through my head. You can bet that plenty of airplanes in the fleet would be sent packing. Eagle would have to be sold off if anyone would even want to buy it. If not, it might just be shut down. That wouldn’t surprise me in the least. And who knows what would happen to the maintenance division. Big changes, I’m sure.

From a network perspective, there’s a lot that can be done. I don’t imagine we’d see dramatic changes in Chicago, Dallas, Philly, and Washington, but other places would probably look at lot different.

In the southeast, the airline could get Charlotte and Miami to play off each other. Miami gets more of the Latin/Caribbean flying that it excels at supporting and Charlotte continues to be the only true competitor to Atlanta for southeast US flying. Those two hubs can work very well together.

As costs rise to somewhere between US Airways and current American levels, Phoenix will likely be scaled back, but the operation there will allow American to pull back in LA a lot. There is no reason that those big regional jets should be flying around there. LA should really just focus on the big business markets that American needs to serve for its corporate clients.

Then there’s New York, where the biggest changes may occur. American is not a truly major competitor in New York anymore. I would actually suggest that American keep the slots needed for major business destinations, but then sell off the rest to JetBlue and enter into a stronger partnership. This is kind of funny, because had US Airways not just traded its La Guardia slots, it might be a different story.

Today, a full quarter of its JFK slots are used for Latin/Florida/Caribbean (and I’m excluding Miami hub flights from that). These are markets that are better served by JetBlue. There are also a bunch of one-off RJ flights feeding the small European bank. Kill ‘em. American simply is not going to compete with United or Delta in New York as they continue to bulk up, so it’s time to focus elsewhere while keeping only the routes that are commercially necessary.

But I’m getting off track. Maybe I’m off base with these changes, but the point is that when you get a smart management team like the current US Airways group in there, they will review everything and do what needs to be done. There isn’t much route overlap, but there is opportunity to optimize what’s out there without question. That’s exactly the kind of sandbox that these guys need. This team isn’t bound by tradition or legacy – they just want to make a better, more profitable airline. They’ll make the hard decisions that the current team likely won’t even consider.

A team with a track record like the current US Airways team will find plenty of money pouring in from the outside to help its cause, and that’s huge. If US Airways starts losing money again thanks to rising fuel, dropping demand, you name it, it doesn’t have much ability to raise more cash on its own. But it would have plenty of money being thrown at a merger with American, and that would give the combined airline some great breathing room.

Remember, these guys never put an airline into bankruptcy. They’ve relied on some skilled financial wizardry to make things work. Doug took over at America West right before September 11 and successfully steered the airline into a federal loan guarantee to keep the airline afloat. The feds made their money back on that one after the airline turned around. (I was quite proud to be a part of that.) Then they pulled US Airways from its last and final bankruptcy (it wasn’t going to escape alive) only to turn it into a modestly profitable success.

Just think what they could do with American.

Many, seem to think that this wouldn’t work because of the US Airways track record in dealing with labor. Oh please. The biggest labor problem at US Airways is that the East pilots went out on their own and trampled over the West thanks to their greater numbers. The issue is within the labor groups, not with management even though many like to point their fingers the wrong way.

A merger with American would fix that right up. The 5,000 US Airways pilots would be quickly outnumbered by the roughly 10,000 American pilots and there might actually be a chance at finding labor peace with a unified union running the show. (I said “a chance.” The American pilots have been pretty irrational in their own right.) But it’s not any worse with the US Airways folks in there than it is without. American is a mess today, and labor relations can’t get much worse. I’d say they could get better with a chance at stronger revenues (which means the potential for profit sharing) and a new team to sweep out the old baggage.

At the end of the day, the industry would end up with a leaner, meaner, and more competitive American Airlines. For travelers, it would mean a better network, undoubtedly a better onboard product, and just a better airline in general. It would add some of the strengths from the US Airways network along with a management not bound by any preconceived notions about what can and can’t be done. It would strengthen oneworld as a competitive alliance while putting a little dent in Star’s US coverage.

Is this even possible? I have no clue. We’ll see how the bankruptcy proceedings unfold. But I think it would be the best possible outcome. Now it’s your turn to rant about why I’m wrong . . .

Last week just downright sucked. I was supposed to be traveling with my family on US Airways to a wedding outside of Cancun. Yes, the same Cancun that was hit by a hurricane/tropical storm/big weather thing. We watched the storm draw closer to Cancun all week, and while US Airways had canceled all other flights to Cancun on Thursday, ours didn’t cancel until a mere four hours before departure.

That was frustrating, of course, and it got me thinking about ways to improve the customer experience in weather disruptions. (I’m not talking about onboard delays, though that was on the news this past weekend.) Most of my ideas would never fly, but there was one that I think makes sense: the retroactive refund.

I don’t want to single out US Airways, because they all have similar policies. When a weather event like this becomes a possibility, airlines issue a weather waiver, which is basically a one-size-fits-all policy that is just about worthless for a large chunk of travelers. The weather waiver nearly always says the same thing.

• If you are scheduled to travel on a day that is expected to be impacted by bad weather, you can change your flight without penalty to a day or two before or after your scheduled flight as long as you keep the same departure and arrival cities.
• If your flight is canceled (as with any flight that’s canceled), you can get a refund.

Some airlines extend the change period up to a couple weeks at times, but the problem is the same. This is completely useless for people who are either attending a specific event or people who don’t have a flexible schedule. For them, they either go as planned or they don’t go at all, so the waiver never applies.

It gets really tricky when there are other aspects to the trip involved. Maybe the hotel has a 2 day cancellation policy. Maybe you need to give more notice to people you’re meeting with. Maybe you need to make alternate plans with adequate notice. There is a lot at stake, and when the airlines grind you down to the last minute, it can be a real problem.

For some people, it becomes a gambling issue. If it looks like the weather is going to scuttle your flight but the airline hasn’t canceled it yet, you have to make a decision. Do you cancel the hotel to avoid a penalty and then just eat the $150 change fee on the plane ticket? Or do you wait until the flight cancels and hope the hotel will be forgiving? Some might say that people should just wait because they don’t know if the flight will even cancel at all. That makes sense in a vacuum but with so many moving parts, it can often make sense in a situation like this to just scrap the existing plan and make alternate arrangements.

But for people on a budget, it’s worth trying to see if the flight will cancel in order to get a refund instead of throwing $150 down the drain. That means they sit on seats they don’t plan on using, just hoping to get their money back. Can the airlines improve on this?

We all know how the airlines think. It’s all about revenue. The airlines don’t want to give up any revenue that they already have, so they aren’t going to let people off easy. They’ve created a system that effectively traps travelers until the flight is canceled, and I can’t really blame them for doing it. I do, however, think the retroactive refund would help.

This doesn’t solve every problem, but it’s the only way I can see to make things better for travelers without having a largely negative impact on the airline’s revenue. (And we know that if it’s revenue-negative, the airlines won’t even consider it, even if it makes good sense from a customer service perspective.) Here’s how I envision it working.

• When a major weather event is predicted, airlines continue to issue a weather waiver as they do today. If people do have flexible travel plans and can take advantage of the offer to change by a couple of days, then that’s great.
• For those who aren’t helped by that, they can still just walk away and pay the $150 change fee BUT if the flight does cancel at a later date because of that weather issue, then the airline will give them the refund that they would have had if they had waited.

The customer benefit is obvious. If the customer sees a hurricane bearing down on his destination, he can cancel his ticket knowing that if the flight does cancel, he’ll still get that refund that he would have just waited around for nervously all week. If the hurricane goes a different way and the flight operates, well, then it’s a gamble that lost and the traveler is out $150. But that’s ok because it still gave him the flexibility to make the decision earlier on his own time without leaving anything on the table.

Now, the harder part to quantify is the benefit for the airline. Only those with access to airline data could really figure out how this looks from a dollar perspective, but there are very clear potential benefits.

Those people who would have paid the $150 fee to make a change might now get a refund instead, and that’s a loss. But there is also a potential for gain. Those who sat around waiting for the flight to cancel are probably squatting on seats they might not use anyway. They just don’t want to pay the change fee so they hope it cancels. These people would now cancel early, freeing up a seat that can be re-sold or used to reaccommodate passengers if the flight operates. If it doesn’t operate, then at least the person will already be removed from the system. One less person who needs immediate help when the reservations group is probably feeling overloaded.

This doesn’t solve every problem but it would help. Any other ideas out there on how to make this process better for travelers?

Earlier this week, US Airways finally got the preliminary injunction it had asked for against its pilots related to the operational disruption that’s been going on for a few months. This was a clear victory for the airline as the judge seemed to agree with US Airways in great detail. I would highly recommend reading the 45 page ruling for some of the juicier tidbits. Chime in with your comments below.

And I thought I’d throw in a bonus topic this week for its insanity. Not sure how much readers know about Stelios Haji-Ioannou, but he is the man behind the “easy” name. The best known easy brand is easyJet, one of the largest airlines in Europe. While Stelios is still the largest shareholder, he doesn’t run the company. He has, however, inserted himself at times and made life difficult for all involved. Now, it appears he’s fed up and wants to start a rival airline, Fastjet or E-jet, to compete with, um, the airline he owns a big chunk of? Riiight. This one is just downright silly.

Remember that ad the US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA) took out in USA Today claiming that US Airways was unsafe? There was a specific flight used as an example and that may be coming back to bite the union. According to a letter sent from the company’s flight ops group to the captain, the airplane was found to be working just fine. Hmm. This is like a soap opera.

According to USAPA’s website, here’s what happened that day:

• When pushing back from the gate, the auxiliary power unit (a backup source of electrical power) and the Hot Battery Bus (a critical source of primary electrical power) both failed – in other words, the plane had no electrical power and no radio communications. None.
• After opening a window to verbally call down to the ground crew (the Captain’s only option), US Airways maintenance was able to restart the power unit, but offered no explanation as to why it failed or any reasonable assurance that it wouldn’t fail again.

So we have a couple issues here. US Airways did a thorough review to see what happened. According to the letter from the US Airways VP of Flight Ops that I’ve obtained, the airline tried to meet with the captain in person to discuss the review but she was unwilling. So they put the results in writing to her.

On the issue of the APU failing, no problem was ever found. The APU (auxiliary power unit) is like a mini-engine which provides power when the engines aren’t running. This is actually used to start the engines on the ground, but it’s not necessarily required for flight. If you’ve ever seen an engine started while you’re at the gate with a big generator nearby, then that’s probably a case where the engines needed an external start because the APU wasn’t working.

Back to this incident, the first entry in the logbook from the captain said “APU failed at gate, unable to restart.” According to US Airways, the mechanics did a test that found no fault with the APU and then proceeded to restart it at the gate without any trouble at all. The captain said she wouldn’t accept the aircraft unless the APU was fixed, but since the mechanics couldn’t actually find any problems that needed fixing, they deferred the issue as permitted by the maintenance program.

That was followed by a second entry from the captain saying:

After APU Auto Shutdown on gate with no external power connected, battery power lasted 3-4 minutes. Unable to restart APU or communicate on VHF [radio] #1.

So the APU failed and wouldn’t restart. US Airways pulled the Electronic Control Box (ECB), which the airline describes as the “brains of the APU.” The ECB records any abnormal events to help with maintenance. So the airline sent the ECB to Diehl Aerospace, which is described as “the repair subcontractor for Honeywell (the manufacturer of the APU).”

Upon review, no auto shutdown nor any failed attempt to restart the APU was recorded. Could the ECB have failed to record the incident? Unlikely. It recorded minor issues before and after the event so it was functioning properly. Diehl sent the ECB back saying no problems were found, and that ECB went back into service with no further issues. The APU apparently was working just fine.

But what about the radio not working? Was there an issue preventing that from functioning properly? Well, that assumes that the APU did shutdown. All we know for sure is that the APU didn’t automatically shut down. But as US Airways notes in the letter, “the ECB does not record a ‘commanded’ shutdown.” So maybe there was a commanded shutdown by someone on the aircraft? I have no clue because it’s not spelled out, but let’s assume that the APU was in fact shut down for one reason or another. What about those other issues that followed?

Apparently the airplane worked as designed. When on the ground, if the engines aren’t on, the APU isn’t on, and there is no ground power (basically, when the airplane is plugged in to a source at the airport), then the batteries will power many of the electronics. But there’s a catch.

To avoid completely draining the batteries while on the ground, the system will cut battery power when voltage drops below 23V for 16 seconds and the airplane is on the ground. When that happens, that VHF radio #1 won’t work. So that’s probably what happened here, and it worked as designed. Was the battery draining too quickly? Not according to US Airways. The airline says “the two main batteries were . . . tested by an outside source and have also been returned to the Company with no faults found.”

So the APU worked, the batteries worked, and the airplane in general seemed to work as advertised. The only thing I don’t see mentioned is anything about the “Hot Battery Bus” not working. The only mention of the hot battery bus in the letter is this:

. . . The [automatic battery shut off on the ground] will not disconnect the batteries when either one is discharged below 23V while in the air; they will continue to power the hot battery buses, DC BAT bus, DC ESSENTIAL bus, and the AC ESSENTIAL bus as long as possible.

So that seems to say that the bus (or buses), which provides continuous power to vital systems, was working. But no further mention is made beyond that. In short, US Airways says “this aircraft performed exactly as it was designed.”

Does that mean the captain fabricated what happened? I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. The only clue we have is from the US Airways letter which says “there is no discipline contemplated” after reviewing this incident. US Airways says it just wants to “put closure on the incident.”

It seems to me that if a pilot fabricated a maintenance problem, and it was proven conclusively, then that would be grounds for discipline of some sort, right? So since there is no disciplinary action here, maybe they’re chalking it up to a misunderstanding or confusion about the situation. Either way, it puts a serious hole in USAPA’s ongoing campaign to question the airline’s safety procedures.

[777 (not an A330) APU exhaust photo via Flickr user Robbie 1/CC 2.0]