US Airways flight attendants union President Teddy Xidas demanded yesterday that US Airways publicly apologize for its response to a Christmas travel debacle that affected 560,000 passengers, saying in a statement that the airline "wrongly accused" employees for "management shortcomings."

Her comments came a day after the U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general concluded that staffing shortages in Philadelphia and an inadequate response by US Airways managers were to blame for a holiday mess that led to the cancellation of 405 flights, delayed another 3,900 and resulted in 72,000 baggage complaints.

Airline Chief Executive Officer Bruce Lakefield originally blamed the problems on employees who called in sick, but the inspector general found that flight attendant sick calls were no higher than the corresponding holiday period a year earlier.

"It's wrong to hold up to public scorn those employees whose job it is to provide personal service to the public," Xidas said. "We would never desert our passengers, and US Airways should acknowledge our commitment." She added: "The people who run the company need to face up to their own failures."

The company did call the events "unfortunate" in a news release Wednesday and is taking steps to solve the staffing issues, but Xidas said in an interview that the comments were "abstract" and fell short of an actual apology.

In January, as it tried to recover from a disastrous holiday travel season, US Airways ranked among the bottom of U.S. airlines in on-time arrivals, mishandled bags and passenger complaints, according to a new report from the Transportation Department.

The airline, seventh-largest in the country, arrived on time 68.6 percent of the time in January, or sixth-worst out of 19 carriers. It was fourth-worst in mishandled baggage reports, with 14.81 per 1,000 passengers (up from 3.85 in January 2004), and second-worst in consumer complaints, with 7.66 for every 100,000 boardings (up from 1.04 in January 2004). Most of the complaints were about baggage and flight problems.

Pittsburgh International Airport's on-time arrival performance of 72.9 percent in January was 15th-best of 31 airports, according to the Transportation Department. The delay-prone Philadelphia International Airport, where US Airways has a hub and is adding to its flight operations, was the worst, with 58.5 percent of the flights arriving on time.

On May 1, US Airways intends to recall 50 flight attendants who had been furloughed involuntarily, according to Xidas. She said the workers would be based at New York's LaGuardia Airport.

Traffic at US Airways was up 3 percent in February, vs. the same period last year, and the planes were 69.7 percent full, a 1.2 percentage-point increase from February 2004.