Usair

LANDOVER -- The third-ranked St. Frances Panthers continued an impressive stretch of basketball, defeating Anacostia, 60-46, in the opening game of the inaugural DeMatha Invitational at the USAir Arena yesterday.Mark Karcher scored a game-high 30 points for the Panthers on 12-for-16 shooting, and junior center Shawn Hampton added 10 points and 11 rebounds.After falling behind early, St. Frances (19-4) controlled the rest of the game, leading by as many as 18 points in the second half. Since losing the area's No. 1 ranking, St. Frances has reeled off four straight double-digit victories.

USAir Group Inc. reported yesterday its second profitable year since 1988, with the $263.4 million in earnings more than doubling the previous year's.But the Arlington, Va.-based company, which is currently negotiating with its unions, continued to hammer away on its inability to compete with low-cost carriers without significant cost cuts."For all the superlatives we can report in our operations and our financial results, there is one number we are reporting that remains very troubling," said USAir Chairman and CEO Stephen M. Wolf.

Faced with a growing threat from Southwest Airlines, USAir is asking its pilots for concessions so it can convert up to 40 percent of its flying into low-cost express flights, according to a memo circulated among the carrier's 5,000 pilots.The Arlington, Va.-based airline, the largest operating at Baltimore Washington International Airport, first approached its pilots last fall, as reported in The Sun in October, about concessions that would allow it to start a low-cost service to compete with Southwest and other low-cost, discount carriers along the East Coast, traditionally USAir's sacred turf.

A Savannah, Ga., federal judge has issued one of the toughest penalties ever in a case involving the increasing tendency of airline passengers to behave disruptively.U.S. District Judge William Moore sentenced Gary Lee Lougee of Pooler, Ga., to 51 months in jail last week for assaulting a USAir flight attendant on a trip from Savannah to Charlotte, N.C, on July 6.Lougee, 40, also will have to repay USAir $611.35 for the expense of turning the airplane around and returning to Savannah."This is a wake-up call," said Dan Drake, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Savannah.

British Airways, which is seeking an extensive alliance with American Airlines, said yesterday that it was severing its three-year relationship with USAir and selling its $400 million stake in the Arlington, Va.-based carrier."

BUSINESS AT Baltimore-Washington International Airport remains on the upswing. Traffic for this year is in the range of 13.5 million passengers. A state-of-the-art international terminal is under construction. Competing airlines look hungrily at the vast potential of BWI's affluent and populous market.Yet there are troubling signs the airport's biggest carrier, USAir, soon will drop BWI as a connecting hub and sharply reduce its 85 daily jet flights. What the airline wants to do is offer a discount air service that could compete with the popular, and inexpensive, Southwest Airlines flights from BWI.That could hurt BWI's rapid growth, at least in the short term.

As part of its plan to cut costs and defend its East Coast turf against low-fare rivals, USAir wants to scrap Baltimore-Washington International Airport as a connecting hub and to launch a discount service there, according to a top airline official.For months, rumors have persisted that USAir, BWI's largest carrier, would sharply cut its 85 daily jet flights there and officially end its status as a hub -- one of three clustered within 120 miles -- as it struggles to cut costs and overlapping service.

SEATTLE -- USAir, which last week ordered 120 Airbus Industrie jets worth an estimated $5.3 billion instead of Boeing 737s, says it will cancel orders for eight Boeing 757s worth about $520 million.USAir also plans talks with Boeing about canceling 40 more orders for Boeing 737s, worth about $1.4 billion, a USAir spokesman said.The carrier is consolidating its fleet with the European manufacturer, rather than Boeing, to cut costs.USAir has lost more than $3 billion since 1989.USAir, based in Arlington, Va., and operating mostly on the East Coast, has about 200 Boeing 737s.

NEW YORK -- In the process of reinventing itself, USAir announced here yesterday that it will change its name to US Airways.But the message that Wall Street wanted to hear from Chairman and CEO Stephen M. Wolf in his first meeting with security industry analysts since taking over USAir last spring was missing.After months and months of talks with its labor unions, USAir still hasn't reached an agreement to cut its costs, long the highest in the industry.New image or not, that fact threatens the carrier's restructuring, especially its efforts to compete with the growing number of low-cost carriers on the East Coast.

USAir Group Inc. launched a major effort yesterday to improve its fleet and cut costs, announcing that it would purchase at least 120 medium-sized aircraft from Airbus Industrie.The deal -- which includes conditions and options that could push it to 400 planes -- is the largest order ever for Airbus. It has a potential value of about $18 billion, but undisclosed discounts will push it lower.The European Airbus consortium is in a crackling race with Seattle-based Boeing Co. for aircraft sales worldwide, and beating out both Boeing and McDonnell Douglas Corp.