American Airlines is firing flight attendants for offering other crewmembers incentives to pick up their trips. The union says this is new, and violates their contract. The Chicago base notified crewmembers on Friday that “Posting a trip with an incentive to drop” had led to “The absolute worst outcome available” and that was done without any progressive discipline.
Our Attendance and Performance Policy is clear. Discipline is meant to be progressive, giving Flight Attendants a chance to correct behavior. Skipping those steps, especially on a rule they just decided to enforce, is a direct violation of just cause and due process.
What’s more, it seems conterproductive. Offering an incentive for someone to pick up a trip promotes gettin trips covered and needing to cancel fewer flights. “Instead, many were Paid Withheld from Service (PW) or disciplined.”
The union filed “a base Notice of Dispute (NOD)…for violating our rights to just cause, due process, and progressive discipline.”
The just cause standard for discipline is something that’s embedded in every airline union contract I’m aware of, and dates to arbitrator Carroll Daugherty’s “Seven Tests of Just Cause” (1964): notice, reasonableness, investigation, fairness, proof, equal treatment, and proportionality.
interestingly, only the AFA-CWA-negotiated pre-merger US Airways labor agreement said explciitly “Discipline will only be levied for just cause.” Last year’s new collective bargaining agreement only embeds it obliquely that I’ve found:
- It says that only probationaries may be discharged “without cause and without hearing,” therefore others cannot.
- And the agreement’s default discharge standard is “cause” since, among other things, dismissal for dues-non-payment is deemed to be ‘for cause’.
For years, American Airlines has tried to crack down on the reverse of this, flight attendants paying for trips rather than being paid. Sometimes paying is… in-kind. But it amounts to selling seniority – senior crew bid for the most desirable trips and then sell them to junior crew.
The group of trip traders known as ‘the Cartel’ was already busted. That was a closed group. However, flight attendants apparently post their offers to trade trips in American’s message board thinking they’re clever by speaking in code.. offering up “cookies” in exchange for “hugs,” “kisses,” and “thanks.”
According to the union, the airline has also:
started reviewing what they consider “patterns” in sick calls and is questioning Flight Attendants. You are not required to share personal medical details with American. If you do not feel comfortable discussing your health with management, simply say so.”
Scaring flight attendants from taking sick time (working sick, or taking sick time as discretionary time) is a tactic United Airlines has pursued aggressively and triggered a Department of Labor investation under the Biden administration.
It not only promotes attendance but also serves as pretext for shedding more senior, and therefore more expensive, crew in favor of cheaper new hires.
No U.S. airline explicitly allows buying or selling trips. Low cost European airlines have effectively required flight attendants to buy access to flying, through, where they have ‘leased’ flight attendants through separate companies which require cabin crew to pay their own costs for training and uniforms (and where seniority wasn’t how trips were assigned, other ‘informal’ methods of duty assignment developed).
I wonder though whether a marketplace in trips makes sense – formal rather than the grey markets that develop.
- Seniority is the product of years of service — essentially an investment of time and labor. Workers accept lower wages early in their career in exchange for future rents when they move up the list.
- If a flight attendant has “earned” that seniority through service, they should be able to monetize it – whether by trip trades, sales, or swaps. That helps (labor) supply meets (scheduling) demand: senior attendants who value time off more than incremental pay can sell their trips and junior attendants who value premium trips or additional hours can buy in.
- Resources (flight hours and desirable trips) flow to those who value them most, as revealed by willingness to pay. Both parties are better off, and no one is coerced. The market allocates scarce schedule slots to their highest-valued use.
- And since secondary markets for trip sales make the system more attractive (senior flight attendants generate income, junior flight attendants accelerate their quality of life by buying access), the job overall becomes more desirable – and airlines can recruit and retain better.
Put another way, they can acquire the supply of flight attendant labor they need at a lower price by increasing the total value of the job package!
What this does on the downside, though, is create jealousies but that’s jealousy over the seniority system itself. Allowing a market doesn’t invent inequality — it monetizes it. Crew are already allowed trip trades and swaps without money. Pricing simply reveals the true value already embedded in seniority.
This is going to be interesting.
You totally miss the current issue
In thr past they only went after senior selling their trips. Now they are going after anyone offering money
Routinely at all airlinea FA offer $ for someone to take their trip. Not selling the trip to make $ but offering a bonus for someone to take a trip off your hands. Totally different issue
benefit costs are so high now that companies don’t want people on the payroll that are there solely for benefits including FAs that bid trips and then give their work away.
Add in that it is harder to recruit junior FAs when the published way out of being so junior is so difficult.
The Air Canada strike proves that airlines are going to begin tightening the screws on lower skilled labor as labor costs increase. FAs and their unions are disconnected from the economic realities of their job.
Since you don’t get it…I shouldn’t be able to have a cushy schedule because I have a big bank account. Good for them… senior mama needs to work or retire.
The point of them paying to get rid of their trips is their junior and they need the day off and they can’t get it off without calling in sick, etc. which can get them in trouble. I see nothing wrong with them paying to drop a trip. The cartel thing is a whole different scenario. That has nothing to do with them trying to drop a trip and paying people to take it that has to do with seniority and that’s ridiculous than American Airlines is going after people that wanna get rid of their trips because they can’t get the day off or hold the day off because of their seniority. American needs to work on other things and quit fighting this kind of stupidity.
Don’t support AA on much, but I totally support them on this. This isn’t about covering for the unexpected. It’s about squatting on flights they have no intention of taking.
@Tim Dunn & Michael proof, the company is going after the wrong people. The company should worry about the cartels not the junior kids that are trying to drop trips because they can’t hold the day off and they don’t wanna get in trouble for calling in sick. That’s what this is all about which is ridiculous instead of going after the cartels they’re going after the low seniority kids that offer money because they can’t get rid of the trip or they need the day off for something else. That’s what this is all about. Has nothing to do with Sr mamas in the cartel giving away trips for money. That is not what American is fighting so those people in the cartels are still doing their thing! Obviously view from the wing didn’t understand what’s really going on when he wrote this article
Gary, you are completely missing a major point – or conveniently choosing to omit it. When senior flight attendants acquire trips that they do not intend to fly – and then sell them to more junior flight attendants – they are bypassing those that would otherwise have legally gotten hose trips at their seniority. Monetizing a transaction that violates seniority is NOT a win for those flight attendants whose seniority is being violated. At American Airlines that practice is strictly against company policy, and those that choose to circumvent seniority know very well that they are breaking the rules. And for those of us with considerable seniority – in my case 33 1/2 years – that would otherwise bid for and get those trips, I would think that even you can understand why it is frustrating to see a very junior flight attendant working them. Just as you do, they make great attempts to justify behavior that is both against company policy AND violates seniority, but the bottom line is that it is just flat wrong.
@parker, Micheal and Tim,
now what if, and this is a result of the bidding system,
I NEED thursdays off for a good reason (visiting an ailing relative, have a class I”m taking, Court appointment…) BUT the bidding system says too bad, we need you to work that day.
SO.. I MUST get rid of that trip… and it’s one of those dog trips, with 4 legs the first day a 10 hr layover in Bakersfield, a 3 leg second day with a 13 hour layover, and 2 legs the 3rd day. I”m desperate to drop it.
let me offer $50 for someone to take it.. I’m out the 30 hours of pay for the trip plus $50…
I should be terminated for my bad luck?
I know you guys are sufficiently entitled to not care about anyone else, but circumstances matter.
@Doug, you’re completely right
There are other issues at play here also. Emergencies come up. Weather comes up. Where a flight attendant cannot do the trip. We put the trips to drop, quickly. Putting money on the trip to drop so there is assurance you can take care of the emergency or due to weather, you can’t make it. Etc. American should NOT penalize those people. Better than having to call in sick. Or missing a trip. Where American harass the flight attendants with performance issues and points against them. It’s better to cover the trip!
American needs to get with the program instead of a Witch Hunt and Harassment!
Why the use of wok e language? It’s a bribe, fair and square.
As a reminder, to bribe is to “persuade (someone) to act in one’s favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement — exactly what is going on here,
Call it as it is and drop the wok eness!
DP…United banned selling/compensating for picking a trip directly from an FA 20+ years ago. The union isn’t arguing that they want the FA’s to be able to “sell” trips. Their gripe is due process & just cause. As stated above and copied below.
Our Attendance and Performance Policy is clear. Discipline is meant to be progressive, giving Flight Attendants a chance to correct behavior. Skipping those steps, especially on a rule they just decided to enforce, is a direct violation of just cause and due process.
How does the trip buying and selling work? Does the money get transferred up front and the trip details transferred afterward? Or are the actions reversed. Do people sometimes cheat?
jns what he’s talking about here that they got fired for is a flight attendant posted a trip to drop many reasons could be needed the day off needed to be with a parent, etc., and they couldn’t hold the day off cause they were junior so they put money on the trip for someone to take the trip for them. Now the other way is called the cartel way and that way the senior people pick up trips and then the junior people pay for those trips because they can’t hold them but that’s not what’s going on here. AA needs to worry about the Sr people that bid the trips and have the junior people pay to take them because the junior people are too junior that’s who American Airlines needs to go after. Not the flight attendants that are junior that can’t hold the day off and need the day off because something major came up and they can’t get rid of their trip so they put money on it. There’s nothing wrong with that. They’ve been doing it forever the pilots do it. It’s they’re making a mountain out of a mole hill there instead of going after the cartel.
Where did you get the idea that the cartels are gone? Every base has them! You can tell by their social pix, in high paying European cities, week in and out. It’s funny, they have a 5 digit seniority number, yet everyone else legitimately on the trip has a 3 or 4 digit number. That’s ten thousand people that were cheated out of a better trip, EVERY SINGLE WEEK. You are a thief, and then have the nerve to be outraged when called out on it. This isn’t AWA anymore, but you aren’t senior enough to even have been AWA, right?
You should not bid for anything you have no intention of flying. And intention should be measured by how many awarded trips you actually fly. The proof will be in you actual schedule. No more bidding great trips and selling them off. This is not a victimless activity. It hurts other flight attendants.
I have zero problems with some offering an incentive to someone to pick up their flight. If an appointment slot become available for a doctor you have waiting months to see, it’s your child’s graduation, etc, if you want to offer someone $100 to take the trip for you, who cares.
BUT if you are senior enough to hold really good trip and you are ASKING people to pay YOU for the privilege of picking up trip you never intended to fly? Forget that! you should be fired or you should retire. I am all for having minimum flying requirements a year. No one should allowed to give away all their trips let alone sell them just so they can have all the benefits of an active employee and flying with a higher seniority than an employee who is working their butt off every week. In this case retire or clean house.
This seems very odd to me. I was an Alaska Airlines FA for about five years, 2017-22, and it was routine and well-known that one could post trips to be picked up by others, and pay them for it. I never got off reserve (though others in my class did, but flew trips I didn’t like). The way I coped was to post my reserve days and pay for others to pick them up. Then I was able to pick up trips I liked (usually with a Hawaii layover). I thought it worked well for everyone.
First thing one has to remember in this world life is not always fair. Sometimes people are prettier, smarter, more talented, than others. Sometimes ones airline goes out of business and one has to start over at the bottom of the list to keep the career going. In a way i can see this as a nice option for a break for a junior crew member to do something different by buying an awesome trip from a more senior flight attendant, at least just as a break.
Problem is not everyone in these situations are allowed to buy into certain trips equally as there is inevitably a cadre of flight attendants favored by the group and those that are not favored by the group.
But once again life is not always fair, and American Airlines has the right to set the tone of what it considers is best in regards to company policy and this is why Airlines have associations and unions to arbitrate and help companies understand the needs of all the employees fairly, and equitably who may need different options to get through the day or year as unfairly as it may be.
My question is why are pilots allowed to offer money to drop trips? And why can AA offer red flag(higher pay trips when needed)?
The activity of selling trips regardless of reason is not permitted. Either it is all or nothing. Yes, agree there are plenty of reasons why someone needs out of a trip because life happens. But those who are doing it otherwise are ruining it. I have an ex-neighbor who is a 30-year American (ex-US) flight attendant. She also substitute teaches school and adjuncts for a college. She bids mostly London trips and apparently in a position that is somewhat desirable (I can’t recall if it’s #4 on the -200 or -300ER that is horrible, or the other way around?) and strongly infers that people will make it worth while to drop ones when she has another paying gig going on. She works for AA for the health benefits.
I would say that’s different than someone who has a doctor appointment offering $50 to get rid of a trip.
But the problem that both AA and APFA run into who will arbitrate what is what? You open the door… What is fair? Who is going to determine if it’s a valid reason or not? That would cause far more problems if you add some sort of discretionary ruling on it. Unions fight for seniority rights, and as an AA F/A in the comments above mentioned, you are disregarding those in some cases. Maybe it’s blatant or maybe it isn’t. But who is going to determine if you can do this, while he can’t do that?
Gary, your story is way too complicated and Tim Dunn, you just don’t make any sense. Please just go away. You both completely missed the point. Senior FAs selling trips to junior FAs violates seniority. Junior FAs offering extra money to get rid of trip that no one wants is a whole different story. Those trips are already on the trade board for anyone who wants them to take them but they are not moving. No seniority is being violated when you’re begging everyone to take your trip and no one wants it regardless of their seniority. American going after people offering extra money to fly something nobody wants doesn’t help the problem of selling premium trips and violating seniority and profiting off the company.
Didn’t SCOTUS rule that people aren’t obliged to join unions or pay dues?