A senior US Airways executive who helped design the troubled airline's restructuring is in final talks to leave the carrier for a senior position at Spirit Airlines, sources familiar with the move said yesterday.
B. Ben Baldanza, US Airways Group Inc. senior vice president of marketing and planning, has been one of the Arlington-based airline's most visible figures, responsible for its frequent-flier program and advertising campaigns. He was a leading developer of US Airways' plan to transform itself into a hybrid carrier that offered low fares while keeping the characteristics of a traditional airline, including international destinations.
Christopher L. Chiames, US Airways' senior vice president of corporate affairs, said the airline has not "made any announcements on management changes." Members of the US Airways board will participate in a conference call today.
Contacted at home, Baldanza declined to comment. Officials at Spirit Airlines Inc. also declined to comment.
Baldanza joined US Airways in 1999 and is one of its longest-serving current senior executives.
"The management team has been decimated," said David N. Siegel, a former US Airways chief executive who was forced to resign in April after clashes with the airline's labor groups. "Unfortunately, there is nobody left to run the company."
One US Airways board member -- speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter -- said Baldanza's resignation is a threat to the airline's future. "The airline is redesigning itself, and it's important to have somebody there such as him with such in-depth comprehension," the board member said.
Since US Airways filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September -- its second filing in two years -- the airline has struggled to remain in business. The carrier, which employs nearly 30,000, has cut salaries, benefits and jobs. As a result of pay and benefit cuts, US Airways has struggled to retain many of its employees, including some of its most senior executives.
In October, former chief financial officer David M. Davis resigned after less than six months to take a job with a Houston-based chemical company. Davis had succeeded Neal S. Cohen, who had resigned in May. US Airways board member Ronald E. Stanley has since replaced Davis.
Before Davis resigned, he told a bankruptcy court that the airline has had trouble keeping executives because of low pay. More than 200 management-level employees had left the company in the first nine months of 2004, with 20 percent of them taking higher-paying jobs at low-cost carriers, Davis said.
While only the nation's 19th-largest airline, Spirit is one of US Airways' competitors in the expanding pack of low-cost, low-fare carriers. The airline serves 18 destinations, primarily along the East Coast, including Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the Caribbean, where US Airways has increasingly expanded its service.
US Airways -- the nation's seventh-largest airline -- has continued to struggle to attract $250 million in financing to exit bankruptcy protection. It has reached nearly $1 billion in concessions with most of its employees. Its machinists union is scheduled to vote Jan. 22 on a new contract that includes steep pay, job and benefit cuts. That contract includes enough outsourcing of mechanics' jobs to eliminate 2,000 of 4,600 mechanics positions.
Founded in 1980 and based in Miramar, Fla., Spirit has 2,700 employees.
