As US Airways Chief Executive Officer David Siegel meets today with hundreds of company managers to stress the need for as much as $300 million in cost cuts, rank-and-file workers worry they will be asked to bear the brunt yet again.

While Siegel isn't expected to lay out details at this companywide meeting, union leaders say his recent weekly messages to employees point to the need for more concessions in 2004, most likely in the form of work-rule changes that would boost the carrier's operating efficiency.

"It is not possible to talk about further cost reductions without talking about labor," said Bill Lauer, of Tarentum-based Allegheny Capital Management, which holds several airline stocks.

New York airline analyst Ray Neidl echoed Lauer's sentiments, saying that personnel represents more than one-third of the airline's expenses. "It will be very hard to get [the $200 million to $300 million in savings] without getting it from labor."

Word that managers were summoned to today's meeting in Washington, D.C., where US Airways is based, was enough to further stoke employee fears. Siegel acknowledged those concerns in a Dec. 1 letter he sent out to managers inviting them to today's get-together, saying that he knew such an invitation would "get the rumor mill buzzing."

But, he wrote, "I am not inviting you to a meeting to deliver bad news or make a major announcement." Instead, "this will be an opportunity for the senior management team to share the initiatives that are under way to change the way we are doing business and to discuss plans for 2004."

Even if specific cost reductions are not discussed today, most union members are convinced it is only a matter of time before US Airways asks employees to re-open their contracts and agree to more cutbacks, on top of the $1 billion in wage-and-benefit concessions already granted the past 18 months.

"Listening to (Siegel's) weekly messages, management appears to once again be headed down the path of extracting more employee concessions as opposed to focusing on growing the airline and generating more revenues," said Bill Gray, president of Transport Workers Union Local 547. However, "the employee bank is closed."

Since mid-November, Siegel has been reiterating the need to cut more costs in talk after talk, hinting at $200 million to $300 million in reductions for 2004.

The chief executive has said those reductions could come from maintenance, flight operations, human resources and in better managing insurance costs and the its US Airways Express operations.

Some analysts and union members expect the airline to ask for so-called "work rule" changes, as opposed to salary reductions, to meet its target.

For example, one such change could theoretically involve the mechanics, who still push the planes out of the gates at the three US Airways hubs in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C.

"There is no reason why that task can't be as competently performed by a ramp person, freeing up machinists to do machinist things," Lauer said.

Wages, Lauer added, "are not really the problem with how US Airways is structured." The real problem is that "they are simply not efficient enough. There are too many man hours required to accomplish specific tasks."

Some employees have asked Siegel why US Airways can not just adopt the business model made famous by Southwest Airlines, a carrier known for its low fares, low costs and high productivity -- but also a carrier that flies only one plane type and eschews hub operations where connecting flights meet en masse in favor of direct point-to-point flying between cities.

If US Airways were to try and transform itself into a Southwest, Siegel said in last week's weekly message to employees, he would have to "tear the entire airline up," eliminating 80 percent of US Airways' work force, 80 percent of its gates and 60 percent of its fleet. The carrier also would have to drop service to half the cities it serves.

"So, we clearly do not want to be a Southwest clone, nor do we need to be," Siegel said in the taped message, distributed late Friday night. The challenge, he said, is to "capture the best of both worlds," combining the higher revenues of a hub-and-spoke system with lower costs and more efficiency.

"I don't see a transformation to some kind of a Southwest business model as logical or sensible for US Airways under any circumstances, even if [US Airways] did go back into Chapter 11'' bankruptcy, Lauer said. "It is not even realistic as a last resort."