Tag Archives for america west.
Parker offered that when he was acquiring US Airways as CEO of America West, David Bonderman no longer had a financial interest in the Arizona-based airline. However he called Parker three or four times, and urged him to name the combined airline America West rather than US Airways. And Parker concedes Bonderman was right.
This spring American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told employees in Phoenix at a Crew News session that he only sought to merge US Airways with another carrier when it became necessary to survive since United and Continental had merged and Delta and Northwest had merged. He said that doing so was always about how to create an airline that would always be there for employees, and not for himself.
That was in response to an employee who asked Parker about his legacy and how he’d want to be remembered.
One American Airlines route stands out to be as an aberration: Meridian, Mississippi to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. That’s a flight of just 69 miles, and it’s operated once daily in both directions with a Bombardier CRJ-200 50 seat regional jet.
To get a quick understanding for why this route exists — and persists under current management — Glazer’s law helps do some of the lifting.
Senator McCain wanted to eliminate the perimeter rule at Washington National airport, but maintained that if that wasn’t politically feasible he wanted airlines based outside the 1250 mile perimeter to have access to Washington National airport. This meant America West getting a Phoenix – Washington National non-stop.
McCain also supported the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act which handed out airline subsidies after 9/11 to America West Airlines, US Airways, American Trans Air, Aloha Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Evergreen International Airlines, and World Airways.
American West was the first airline to do tray table advertising (in December 2003), a practice that moved over to US Airways on some aircraft. US Airways even experimented with ads on first class tray tables.
AirTran actually launched ads on the backs of the tray tables (at US Airways you actually had to put the tray table down in order to see the ad). United experimented with tray table ads as well.
Effective this past Saturday, May 20, United Mileage Plus members earn miles on “USAirways West” — USAirways flights operated under the America West flight certificate. This ends one of the more confusing mileage accrual issues in recent times, where USAirways is a member of Star Alliance and a partner of United’s but a sizable portion of USAirways flights were ineligible for United mileage accrual because they were ‘really’ America West flights operating under the USAirways name — meaning they were old America West flights, operating under the old America West flight certificate, and America West was not a United partner even though the company was merged into one and now called USAirways and the flights were sold as USAirways flights. Mergers are indeed messy things, and in this case quite customer unfriendly. That piece of…
Both USAirways.com and AmericaWest.com now both direct you to the same, new website. It looks like a rocky transition, the website was put up before it was ready. Some Flyertalkers are reporting that the merger of their frequent flyer accounts is a mess, with their status being downgraded. Others see miles missing from their accounts. Some attempted ticket purchases either are or are no going through, or in some cases going through without notice to the traveler (so they’ve bought tickets but need to call the airline to find out, and even the airline representatives take awhile to figure out that yes, indeed, a ticket has been purchased). Developing…
USAirways and America West haven’t quite gotten their act together combining their two frequent flyer programs. They don’t want to send out new elite membership cards under the old programs and can’t send out new cards under the combined programs (which count status from having flown both airlines) until they’re further along with integration. So they’re extending everyone’s elite status in the meantime. If your status was set to expire or be downgraded on February 28th, you have a reprieve. If you were counting on combining last year’s flying from both carriers to boost your status, you’ll have to wait. An email like the following was sent to current elite members: As a valued Gold Elite member, we want to make you aware of some important information about your membership. The new Dividend Miles program…
When the USAirways-America West merger was first announced in May I noted that a key detail was a planned cash infusion from a credit card partner in the neighborhood of $300 million. It was curious that the partner wasn’t named, while Bank of America was already partner to both airlines. So, despite the Charlotte Observer calling the news “somewhat unexpected”, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that Juniper Bank (which issues Frontier and Airtran cards) will become the issuer of the USAirways card.Taking the place of Charlotte-based Bank of America will be Juniper Bank, a subsidiary of British-based Barclays PLC, which agreed Monday to pour $455 million into the merger between US Airways and America West Airlines. In exchange, Juniper will have the exclusive right to market the US Airways credit card beginning in 2008,…
The press release is here. As expected, USAirways is essentially being acquired by America West, though the airline will operate with the USAirways name. Significant cash will be added to the merged airline through the deal, including $75 million from Air Canada. This participation suggests to me that the combined airline will be a member of the Star Alliance. Of particular interest to me, $300 million in a signing bonus and a loan from prospective affinity credit card providers for the merged company. Negotiations with credit card companies are still in progress. Bank of America currently issues the affinity cards for USAirways and America West both. Now, this is the part of the press release that I simply don’t believe: The $600 million in anticipated annual synergies are the result of route restructuring, revenue synergies…
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
