According to an employee thread on US Aviation and a blog post by Arizona Republic reporter, Dawn Gilbertson, the non-alcoholic drink charges on US Airways will be dropped effective March 1, 2009. Ms. Gilbertson writes,
You heard it here first: US Airways plans to reverse its decision to charge for soft drinks, water and coffee.
The airline plans to tell employees tomorrow and announce it publicly Monday, I’m told. They will go back to being free on March 1.
The airline, the most aggressive on the fee front, has repeatedly said the charges for soft drinks haven’t been a big money raiser.
But, reportedly, they said have made the aisles less clogged and let flight attendants provide better service. Still, US Airways is the only major airline charging for non-alcoholic beverages and flight attendants were never thrilled with the idea.
According to a letter posted on FlyerTalk that seems to be from the US Airways CEO, “with US Airways being the only large network carrier to charge for drinks, we are at a disadvantage. More importantly, this difference in our service has become a focal point that detracts from all of the outstanding improvements in on-time performance and baggage handling that all of us have worked so hard to achieve over the past year.”
Last year, the Tempe airline reversed its controversial decision to eliminate bonus mileage for frequent fliers after no peers matched. Now with no other major airline charging $2 for a soda or water, US Airways is backing down.
Stay tuned for more info.
Although it will be very interesting how US Airways spins this recent reversal in policy, the fact is, the company made a mistake in thinking that enough customers would be willing to purchase such beverages to offset any rising costs and losses in revenue.
I applaud US Airways for this move, if it is indeed true, but for some customers, it may be a little too late.
