US Airways 2011 Annual Report Download - page 17

Table of Contents
Customer Service
We are committed to consistently delivering safe, reliable and convenient service to our customers in every aspect of our operation. During 2011, we
continued to work to enhance our customers' experience as we replaced 12 Boeing 737 aircraft with 12 more modern and fuel-efficient new Airbus A321
aircraft, which feature Gogo Inflight Internet and more First Class seats. Additionally, we completed the installation of a dedicated First Class cabin on 110
US Airways Express regional jets, enabling us to offer more seamless same-class service, and also began the installation of the Envoy Suite, the airline's fully
lie-flat business-class seats with an on-demand in-flight entertainment system, on our fleet of wide-body Airbus A330-300 aircraft.
Our 2011 operating performance was affected by a pilot job action campaign in the form of increased taxi times and maintenance write ups, adverse
weather conditions including Hurricane Irene and runway construction at our largest hub in Charlotte. Combined, these factors drove significant deterioration
in key operating metrics as compared to the prior year. In July 2011, we filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Charlotte seeking an injunction against
USAPA, the labor union that represents our pilots. On September 28, 2011, the U.S. District Court in Charlotte granted a preliminary injunction, which was
subsequently converted to a permanent injunction, prohibiting USAPA from interfering with airline operations by conducting an illegal work slowdown.
Additionally, the Charlotte runway construction was completed in October.
Despite these challenges, we achieved six first place baggage handling rankings in 2011 and one first place on-time performance ranking among the big
hub-and-spoke carriers. In addition, in April 2011, we received a first place ranking among the big hub-and-spoke carriers in the annual Airline Quality
Report ("AQR"). The AQR is published by teams of researchers at Wichita State University in Kansas and Purdue University in Indiana. US Airways
improved its ranking among the DOT reporting carriers for the fifth consecutive year, and received a 6th place overall ranking, which was up from 8th place a
year ago.
We finished the year with outstanding operational performance, including our best December and fourth quarter on-time, completion factor and
baggage handling performance. As reported to the DOT, our December and fourth quarter on-time performance was 87.8 percent and 86.9 percent,
respectively, our completion factor was 99.5 percent and 99.4 percent, respectively, and our ratio of mishandled baggage was 2.42 and 2.31, respectively. Our
efforts and resources are focused on maintaining our performance at these levels.
We reported the following operating statistics to the DOT for mainline operations for the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010:
Better
2011 2010 (Worse)
On-time performance (a) 79.8 83.0 (3.2) pts
Completion factor (b) 98.4 98.5 (0.1) pts
Mishandled baggage (c) 2.70 2.56 (5.5)%
Customer complaints (d) 1.91 1.54 (24.7)%
(a) Percentage of reported flight operations arriving on time as defined by the DOT.
(b) Percentage of scheduled flight operations completed.
(c) Rate of mishandled baggage reports per 1,000 passengers.
(d) Rate of customer complaints filed with the DOT per 100,000 passengers.
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