Desperate to cut down on absenteeism on weekends, the company has resorted to incentives. Employees who show up as scheduled are eligible for drawings to win plasma TVs, iPods, and $100 Acme gift certificates.
US Airways ' managing director in Philadelphia, Tony Grantham, 48, said his agenda for fixing service went far beyond gimmicks.
He is the fifth US Airways chief in Philadelphia in 2 1/2 years. His mission is a crucial one, not only for passengers, but also for his employer's bottom line. Philadelphia generates a quarter of the airline's more than $11 billion in annual revenue.
"I'm an impatient man," said Grantham, whose workforce includes 1,350 baggage and other ramp workers. "But we're making progress. "
So far, the results have been mixed. Complaints over lost luggage dropped in the early part of this year, but climbed throughout the summer. Grantham said his ramp workforce had been short as many as 200 people during those months.
His woes deepened in August, after authorities in England broke up a terrorist plot, prompting new rules banning certain fluids and gels on flights. This increased checked baggage by 20 percent.
In a city where tourism is a key economic engine, how US Airways performs is a serious matter.
"What people remember about a visit is how they're treated, and here we're talking about people's personal belongings," said Meryl Levitz, president of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp.
"Everybody's got miserable airport stories. The miserable airport stories in Philly are about baggage claim. "
As the city appointee in charge of the airport, Isdell hears a lot of those stories. Aggrieved fliers don't realize that an airline's workers, not the airport's, move luggage.
US Airways ' poor performance makes for a nonstop migraine for the airport, where it's by far the dominant airline. With Philadelphia a US Airways hub, its planes carried almost two-thirds of the 32 million passengers who took off or landed at the airport last year.
US Airways ' baggage woes, Isdell said, are lodged in the "collective psyche. "
Said Isdell: "In Philadelphia, there's an unspoken rule. If you don't have to check baggage , you don't."
St. Louis blues
for flight's passengers
Casey Dietrich didn't know about that rule before her Sept. 1 US Airways Express flight to St. Louis.
Dietrich, 25, of Somerdale, and her boyfriend each checked a suitcase for the flight, on a rainy Friday night. They were headed to a friend's wedding.
Their plane arrived in St. Louis on schedule about 11 p.m.
Their luggage didn't. In fact, about 15 passengers discovered that their baggage had not arrived, US Airways confirmed.
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