Carlos Perea

United Airlines Announces Mt. Dali Service
Aaron Sea, Transportation Reporter

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
Chicago, Illinois

In a late-night press release, Chicago, Illinois-based United Air Lines, Inc (NYSE: UAUA) has announced its intentions to formally stage a press conference on the morning of Wednesday, March 7th, 2007. The press conference will confirm rumors that United Airlines will begin code sharing with Tempe, Arizona-based US Airways (NYSE: LCC) on its daily flight between Mt. Dali and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


A US Airways Airbus A320 parked at Gate A2 at the Mt. Dali International Airport. US Airways serves Mt. Dali on a daily basis with a late afternoon flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

What is “code sharing”? Why is it newsworthy?

“Code sharing” is an airline practice whereby one airline places its two-letter IATA code on another airline’s flight, and assigns it its own flight number.

In this case, United Airlines is placing its code of “UA” on US Airways’ flights 1438 and 1069, and assigning them the flight numbers 1701 and 1716, respectively. By doing so, United Airlines gets to add a new destination to its network without the added investment of sending an airplane to said destination on a regular basis, and the added costs that come with servicing the airplane and paying for any employees such as customer service representatives who would staff the check-in desks and gate kiosks.

United Airlines will be able to sell tickets on the US Airways flights, bringing its passengers to US Airways, who receives a cut of the profits. US Airways gains higher passenger numbers (which is also beneficial to Mt. Dali), and United gains a new city.

Code sharing is commonly seen between airlines that belong to the same alliance. United Airlines and US Airways are both members of the Star Alliance, an alliance that markets itself as “the airline network for Earth” and has over a dozen major airline partners. Alliances encourage the practice of code sharing, and as a result, hundreds of US Airways flights can be booked through United Airlines, and vice-versa. The same is true for other members of the Star Alliance.

This is a newsworthy event because it means that the Mt. Dali Department of Transportation (DOT) can boast that it has attracted a third airline to its Mt. Dali International Airport, which serves as the main gateway into and out of Mt. Dali. Currently, the only other carrier to serve Mt. Dali is Ft. Worth, Texas-based American Airlines, which links Mt. Dali with Miami ten times a week.

A Troubled Start

US Airways themselves have recently begun service to Mt. Dali, with the inaugural flight arriving on Friday, February 23rd, 2007. As the airline entered its third week of service to Mt. Dali, it merged its reservation systems, which caused some serious “hiccups” across the US Airways system, to say the least.

Back in 2005, Tempe, Arizona-based America West Airlines—a low-cost carrier that specialized in serving the American west—merged with US Airways, and chose to keep the US Airways name. Since then, however, the two airlines have remained using two completely different reservations systems. In effect, they were still two separate airlines. What was once America West was now US Airways West, and what was once US Airways was now US Airways East, or “US West” and “US East” for short. That ceased to be the case on Sunday, March 4th, 2007, when the two systems were merged into one system. The airline expected a rather seamless transition, but this did not turn out to be true.

The change to the new reservations system resulted in the automated check-in kiosks that were once used by US East flights suffering massive failures at US Airways’ main hub at Philadelphia. The result? Passengers had to resort to checking in manually, at a traditional check-in desk such as the ones that the Mt. Dali International Airport has. This would not have been too much if a problem if it wasn’t for the fact that a mind-boggling forty percent of all US Airways domestic passengers used the automated check-in kiosks. Widespread delays ensued, as well as a few cancellations. US Airways flights 1438 and 1769, the outbound and inbound legs to Mt. Dali, respectively, were cancelled on Sunday, and ran two hours late on Monday. Tuesday, things seemed to be smoothening out somewhat, with the arrival of flight 1438 only being twenty minutes late, and a Herculean effort by the dedicated US Airways staff at Mt. Dali resulted in flight 1769 pushing back five minutes ahead of schedule.

Despite this local achievement, US Airways’ name has gained some undeserved negative media attention, much like New York City, New York-based jetBlue Airways did when it surfaced that they, in essence, “trapped” passengers aboard their aircraft for periods longer than eight hours. The memories of both of these well-publicized incidents remain fresh in the public’s mind, leading some to question the timing of United Airlines’ announcement.

A United Airlines spokesperson told the Dali Time in a phone conversation that “For something as complicated as a [reservation] systems changeover, US Airways strove to do their best, but were faced with an unexpected development in the failure of the automated check-in system. We at United admire how US Airways is handling the situation, reducing any inconveniences to travelers as much as is humanly possible. On the contrary, Mr. Sea, announcing the code share tomorrow morning will demonstrate that we stand behind our good Star Alliance airline partner. We have no qualms about this issue that will settle itself by the time that the code share begins.”

Because of this reservations system changeover, all code sharing between United Airlines and US Airways has been suspended until late March, to allow for the ironing out of any “kinks” that may have been caused by the change over. The United Airlines code share on US Airways flights 1438 and 1769 will not begin until Monday, April 2nd, 2007. United Airlines flights 1701 (US Airways flight 1438) and 1716 (US Airways flight 1769) will soon be available for purchase on the United Airlines website, accessible at United.com, or through independent travel agencies and web sites.

Passengers who book tickets on these US Airways flights through United Airlines will be eligible to earn frequent flyer points with United Airlines' Mileage Plus program. To check in, they will proceed to the US Airways check-in desks located on the south side of the terminal at the Mt. Dali International Airport, and will act and be treated like normal US Airways passengers.

About United Airlines

United Airlines is one of the United States’ oldest airlines, tracing its roots back to Walter Varney’s “Varney Speed Lines” air mail service in mid-1926. In 1927, William Boeing started an airline called Boeing Air Transport, and bought several air mail carriers, including Varney. Boeing’s other holdings included the Boeing Aircraft Company, which today is a leader in the aerospace industry (ironically, the flights that United Airlines will code share on are operated by an Airbus A320 aircraft, manufactured by Boeing’s long-time rival, Airbus Industrie).

In 1934, the Air Mail Act of 1934 forced Boeing’s company to be split into three: a parts supplier, an aircraft manufacturer, and an airline. This airline was United Airlines, which steadily went on building its domestic and international networks throughout the years.

In 1961, United Airlines merged with Capital Airlines, which made United Airlines the world’s largest commercial airline—a title that the carrier no longer holds. During its lifetime, the airline has been a pioneer of new technologies and aircraft, launching Boeing’s 767 in 1982 and Boeing’s 777 in 1995.
Unfortunately, the last two decades have not been kind to United. A 1985 employee strike, the failure of United’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), and a 2000 employee strike that led to the “Summer of Hell” that saw thousands of flights delayed or cancelled due to inadequate pilot staffing. 2001 witnessed the use of two United Airlines aircraft in the heinous attacks on the World Trade Center, which resulted in the collapse of Towers 1, 2, and 7, and led to the airline closing its Miami crew base inherited from Pan American Airlines and declaring bankruptcy later that same year.

Of particular interest is a failed merger proposal from 200, where United Airlines proposed acquiring US Airways, the airline that it is now code sharing with on its Mt. Dali service. US Airways, as mentioned earlier, was later acquired by America West Airlines.

The past five or six years have seen a complete turnaround at United, and saw the creation of United’s current blue and white livery which is easily recognizable both in the air and on the ground. United launched its low-fare offering, “Ted” (derived from the last three letters of United) in 2003, and its “Premium Service” (PS) product in 2004, offering enhanced amenities to passengers on select routes between New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The airline also took advantage of its bankruptcy to “trim the fat”, so to speak, and improvements within the airline such as the creation of Ted and the Premium Service product enabled the carrier to exit bankruptcy in February of this year and establish itself as one of the United States’ best and well-linked major airlines.

Article courtesy of the Dali Time—Mt. Dali’s Premier News Source.