US Airways has announced yet another ambitious recovery and survival plan, this one depending, as did previous incarnations, on gaining wider entrance into the international marketplace through an alliance. Previous versions of this included the link-up with British Airways, which collapsed in 1996 when BA went off on its own to set up oneworld.
The US Airways plan also depends on gaining pay concessions from crew on its discount unit, MetroJet, which it would shut without pay cuts, and on pilots union agreement to let US Airways fly more than the 75 regional jets (RJs) it is now limited to under the existing pilot contract.
It would use 60 RJs on short-haul mainline routes and add as many as 350 more to replace turboprops on US Airways Express routes. It would beef up its longer haul flying with Airbus A321s while deferring deliveries of 30 other Airbus narrowbodies from 2003-6 to 2005-9.
In all, the plan should improve US Airway's annual profitability by $439 million, said airline president Rakesh Gangwal. But Air Line Pilots Association chief Chris Beebe promptly claimed that the airline "was on the way to declaring war on his union". Without union blessing the plan is certainly doomed.
Source: Airline Business
