For people who fly US Airways out of Philadelphia, there may be no scarier moment than this: the instant when their bags slip out of sight on the conveyor belt.
Unless it's the wait for the bags to pop up on the carousel after landing.
In between, the bags go on a perilous journey.
On the way to the plane, they fall off carts onto the airport tarmac. Other US Airways luggage trucks drive by. Nobody stops.
Outbound luggage circles pointlessly on US Airways ' underground conveyor system while planes lift off half-loaded. Why? The system's optical scanner can't read a third of all destination tags.
Shorthanded crews fall behind when unloading suitcases. Sometimes, it's because some US Airways baggage handlers just "rolled" another flight, their term for ducking out on the job.
This is the world of US Airways in Philadelphia, where a demoralized workforce, decrepit and scarce equipment, and revolving-door management have combined to cripple the simple task of getting bags on and off planes.
Now US Airways says it is spending more than $20 million to turn things around. Its chief executive, Doug Parker, says he knows service has been dreadful.
"It is not acceptable. It's not up to our standards. It's an embarrassment," Parker said last week during an interview at The Inquirer. "And we are going to get it fixed. "
Parker did not dispute the deep-seated nature of the problem. Consider:
The Philadelphia baggage operation's performance is by far the worst in the US Airways system, with a lost-luggage rate about four times the airline's as a whole, The Inquirer has learned.
The Philadelphia numbers are so bad that they drag down the entire airline. According to federal figures released last week, US Airways had the worst score in mishandled-bag reports among all major airlines for 2006. The airline's rate was 7.6 lost or damaged bags per 1,000 passengers, versus an industry rate of 6.1.
Lost bags aside, the airline is often painfully slow delivering bags to the carousels. "The fact is the other carriers don't take as many minutes to get bags from the plane," said Charles J. Isdell, the city's airport director.
The local leaders of the union for baggage handlers are off the job and facing criminal trials. Police arrested them in May on charges of beating up organizers from a rival union. Even before the arrests, US Airways fired the 22 union leaders, shop stewards, and other local members charged in the brawl.
Some passengers have become so angry that US Airways has called the police. In one such incident, police in August threw an irate passenger onto a moving carousel, five witnesses said. The 24-year-old man had been yelling after a wait of more than an hour for bags.
Many workers appear to be just as unhappy.
In the dark and dank catacombs beneath the public's luggage carousels, and even in the bright sun on the tarmac, US Airways employees at Philadelphia International Airport toil in a rancorous atmosphere.
Longtime workers are bitter about round after round of wage cuts that have wiped out a decade of raises. New hires chafe at the low starting pay for this backbreaking and humdrum job.
Too often at US Airways ' B and C domestic terminals, it has been Lord of the Flies on the job. Crews steal tug-tractors and belt-loaders from one another, sometimes even in midjob. Some even pocket ignition coils - to disable a tug so they alone can drive it.
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