Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 14, 1994                   TAG: 9410140125
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN BUSINESS

AKRON, Ohio - In a year when accidents have claimed the lives of 168 of your passengers, when questions are still unanswered and travelers remain unsure, how do you convince millions that your airline is still safe to fly?

If you're USAir's chairman and chief executive Seth Schofield, you write letters - a million of them - to every single frequent-flier member you have and many you wish you had.

This letter-writing campaign is one of several avenues USAir is taking in its efforts to allay customer concerns after its air disaster last month near Pittsburgh that killed all 132 people on board. It was the airline's fourth fatal accident in three years.

Pilots, salespeople and the airlerienced in July, according to airline analyst Avmark Inc.

With the proliferation of frequent-flier programs, sending out 1 million letters to customers is a breeze - and for an airline looking to cut costs, it can be done, relatively, on the cheap.

``It's much less expensive than taking out a full-page ad in newspapers across the country,'' said industry analyst Harold Shenton.

- Knight-Ridder/Tribune