American Airlines flight attendants have a status conference with the National Mediation Board this upcoming Wednesday over whether the federal government will allow them to strike.
And flight attendant social media is lighting up over an incident on board a flight from Dallas to Denver this week where the airline’s Senior Vice President of Inflight and Premium Guest Services, Brady Byrnes, was traveling with his family and reportedly wrote up the crew for failing to deliver proper service.
Flight attendants say the allegations are false and petty, and their claim is stoking anger at the carrier at a crucial moment. In a nutshell, Byrnes lodged a complaint despite his family receiving their choice of beverages during turbulence when the captain had restricted service. As one of the crewmembers being called in to explain themselves tells it,
- The captain instructed flight attendants to delay the start of inflight service and once they were able to proceed protocol was not to provide hot beverages.
- All passengers, including Byrnes and his family, were served. (“Brady, who traveled with his family, asked for Coke Zero and cranberry for his children and he even asked the crew to pour cranberry for his daughters.”)
- Yet Byrnes reported them for not doing service. “We all got emails at 4am about it and the company needed an explanation to why.”
- And they noted Byrnes was friendly and solicitous to their faces, didn’t express any concerns with them, but once he was off the flight he triggered an investigation.
The union expressly voted ‘no confidence’ in Byrnes in particular in October 2023. And whether there is more to the story than being reported by the individual crewmembers or not, this is stoking anger at him, and therefore at the company, as a symbol of how they’re mistreated and disrespected.
Aviation watchdog JonNYC was first to report on the incident Friday, though it’s been sent to me along with greater detail by several employees as well.
drAAma: (Gucci guy, remember?) pic.twitter.com/DBMKXFSnad
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) March 8, 2024
Byrnes has been the focus of a great deal of flight attendant ire recently. In the fall their union’s President others confronted Byrnes at corporate headquarters, and a security alert was sent out across the Skyview campus for which the airline later apologized.
Photos of the confrontation went viral, and his Gucci attire has come to symbolize among cabin crew how out of touch he is. He almost always talks about his roots working as a flight attendant, but he’s a Gucci-wearing Senior Vice President while Boston-based second year flight attendants are eligible for food stamps.
Indeed, Byrnes comes off as aloof and out of touch. Two years ago, when a flight attendant reached out to him with concern over a trainee being dismissed, he chided them and reported them to their supervisor suggesting it was out of line for doing so.
He should have thanked the employee for their concern, shared that he appreciates their looking out for a colleague – that’s a great instinct – but he hopes they can understand that they do not have all of the facts, and that he’s not at liberty to share more about a personnel matter.
Brady Byrnes is in charge of both inflight and premium services, and these are both areas where the airline lags competitors. Naturally he was promoted from Vice President to Senior Vice President.
Reminds me of the nut job head of Korean Airlines flight attendants who got mad that she was served packaged nuts.
Yet another in a long list of many reasons to NOT fly American.
Management will take his word (regardless of how many voices speak up for the FA’s involved)
Morale continues to plumment.
I pity those who live by DFW and CLT.
@767 and @MichaelLissack … +2 . He gets a drink called zero because that’s his non-number . Thumbs up to the flight attendants . Thumbs down to the zero manager .
I’m assuming this is only the flight attendants side. They hate this guy and have every motivation to throw a good hit piece about him out there.
I’m on A LOT of AA flights. A good 75% of them feature a lazy/underperforming crew.
@ Gary — Byrnes should be fired for incompetence.
Doesn’t he know that HIS OWN.POLICY is that FAs are there.primarily for your safety and all AA is expected to do is fly you from point A to point B.
Kinda sucks when your crappy rules get applied to YOU, doesn’t it?
Sounds he is doing his best to enforce service levels and meeting exactly the kind of anti-passenger union beligerance we here of so much with respect to AA.
Good for him, but I would not be surprised to hear of him leaving in the near future for a position with a company that is more customer-centric. That would be interpreted bhy the unions as a victory. It would certainly be a ,loss to customers.
Question: Did the FA’s forget/not do another type of service they were supposed to do? I mean, seems pretty convenient of this FA to only bring their drink service interaction with him. Also, besides to recall memory/prove they were in fact there, I ask FA’s to pour for children traveling with me ALL THE TIME and even when I order a canned drink, I don’t want the whole can. PLUS AA FA’s are known for not picking trash and leaving you with things so that your unable to close the seat back tray with all the cups/cans/etc they’ve left us with.
Just trying to come up with another reason than “This guy is evil.”
Remember, he himself was a Flight Attendant once. So he should known the procedures and service steps. I would think he has been on his best behavior after the other incident and knows he is being “watched” by union members. Just doesn’t add up.
It’s a shame that some airline executives have to be so arrogant and unappreciative of how hard flight crews work. There should be more praise for the incredible and arduous task they must provide consistently each day.
I think Delta has the best managed service that I have experienced in my 56 years of flying. Their management team seems more in tune to their crew and passengers needs and concerns. American seems so inconsistent with reliable service. Every one of my travel problems have been flying with American through DFW.
BenG and others I agree with. After flying AA my vote is for Brady. Good for him if he dresses well, don’t want sloppy just to match AA service
Don’t take the FA’s story as gospel. Years ago I was contacted at random by AA. They asked if I had received in-flight service (I hadn’t). Strong hints that there was a he said, she said thing going on where someone reported no service and the crew said there was. I was in FC, though.
we’re in to the 3rd generation of shills at GSW who sit at the top of the income pyramid at the behest of a board and shareholders that have continued to prosecute a never-ending campaign of THE WAR ON PAX.
the FAs have PTSD from their daily participation in Commercial Air Travel Combat
i hand each of them a jackson when i board and if everyone up front would do the same it would make a big difference in their lives
i also bring a dozen donuts whenever possible (depends on the station some don’t have donuts in the terminal) or chocolate bars at least
those of you who are unhappy with their enthusiasm, do something about it
The facts of this specific flight don’t even matter and is possible the whole complaint was fabricated to drive an larger wedge between the FAs and the company.
The real issue is that labor relations at AA are so broken that no contract is going to be able to return AA to an acceptable level of in-flight service.
AA mgmt very well might be moving toward breaking the union and starting all over.
The crew already sent an ASAP report which goes directly to the FAA. The Captain responded that was his orders FAA sided with FAs and nothing will happen.
Too many FAs just want the paycheck and don’t want to work. While I totally support kicking off unruly passengers, I also expect people to do their jobs and not play around on their phones, gossip and recover from hangovers while they are supposed to be working.
A big mess and embarrassing for those who do want to do their jobs.
@hagbard, you mean bribe them else they won’t do their jobs?
He accused the flight attendants of not providing PROPER service. The flight attendants responded that they provided service, and did not mention any specifics of his complaint. Perhaps he had full legitimate concerns with their service. One thing is for sure: these flight attendants do not appear interested in finding out what their mistakes were and learning from them. Instead, they sound interested only in defending what they did, whether right or wrong.
I would believe just about anyone else ahead of AA FAs. Many of them go out of their way to deliver a miserable experience. Said “good morning” as I boarded my last F flight on AA and the FA replies, “yeah, and let’s keep it that way.”
no, i mean acknowledge the hellscape they work in
i can pay $20 for a pdb oj in the terminal
it’s not possible to know who deserves it and who doesn’t, and it’s not possible to “tip” the 2 riding in the back for landing
so i do it on boarding and seek out the 2nd or 3rd in the back after takeoff
it gets refused about 25% of the time
i also have drawn tears when i tell them why i’m “tipping” them
the job conditions commercial FAs work in are just like seatback recline: expectations from decades past not in line with 2024 torture tube reality
they are WARRIORS on the battlefield
@hagbard
I’ve done something also. I quit flying AA. 8 years since I stepped on one of their planes. And I’ve even flown AC if that tells you how far I’ll go to avoid them.
AA needs to break the union. Twice in my long career in management I’ve been involved in lockouts. Both of the unions were better funded than the FA union due to their size. Both of them were tough on the company initially but they won in the end. That may be what AA management is planning with the slow walking of the contract.
This guy Byrnes should go 4-5 years without a wage (or bonus) increase. Byrnes should be out there trying to improving employee morale not reporting them for petty nonsense!
A typical company man who props himself up as the poser he is. I wouldnt want to wait on him nor his brats. AA is no longer a shadow of it’s former self.
Wait! Did Tim Dunn just make a post without working in Delta’s seat per mile profit or that they own a refinery? Anybody that knows his real name check in on him. I’m worried.
Anyone who flies often knows there are three groups of flight attendants. Those that are friendly and professional, know their jobs and are happy to take care of the pax. Those that do as little as possible. Those that do a fairly good job, but spend half the flight sitting in the first-class galley talking as loudly as possible. No pax is going to ask them to be quiet, nobody is going to ask them why they’re so crabby. We’re on an airplane, they’re in charge. Nobody knows if or how they’d retaliate. So it just goes on and on and on. Airline management should employ ‘field supervisors’ who travel incognito and report on their experiences. But that would probably violate someone’s rights to something, so we pax continue to be abused or delighted with our flights. All a roll of the dice for the pax. FAs who whine about the stress of their jobs are ignorant … they knew what the job was going in, complaining about it now is ridiculous.
H2,
funny thing is that there are people responding here that agree that it might be time for AA to break the FA union and are considering the possibility that AA might be doing this.
If you want a Delta connection to all of it, you have to ask if Delta didn’t do the masterstroke for AA, UA and WN mgmts in giving its FAs – and the rest of their workforces – raises which were large enough to make smaller carriers choke – but high enough that each of the big 4 can afford – but no more.
AA clearly wants to cut its labor costs; they have cut costs in practically every other part of the business except for w/ the pilots and know there is no need to continue to entertain the fantasies of AA FAs for a larger pay raise than what DL has given its FAs.
At some point, AA has to say that rescuing service levels has to happen; even hub captive people say they are not willing to fly AA because of service – and AA knows that.
The only real mystery in all of this is how UA’s FAs are not much more wound up about their lack of a new contract than they are. UA and WN FAs might still genuinely believe that they can get more than DL FAs while their companies know that isn’t happening and are willing to drag out the process just to avoid a confrontation.
no union is going to “settle” for what DL is paying its non-union FAs. The fact that AA has specifically said that is as far as AA will go makes it clear they are setting up for a conflict with their FAs. The only question is how long the conflict will last and how it will be broken.
The FAA doesn’t care about customer service onboard the aircraft. The FAs can file all the paperwork they want.
@Tim Dunn
Couldn’t agree more. I also think the union doesn’t want to push too hard because they know they can’t deliver what they’ve promised (Gary has pointed this out). And I have to wonder if Delta doesn’t do things like boarding pay to push the unions knowing bad service will drive more to them. You know that conversation has happened. Delta’s service is marginally better and I give them a lot of money every for international travel (Southwest gets my domestic dollars because they have direct flights but if I hear one more safety briefing that includes the fake Gucci bags you might be reading about me in this blog). But as an adult I’ve never been spoken to like I was in CLT. That was my last flight on AA. I will only book them again when they come out of bankruptcy. I would love to fly JAL, but that would require a flight first on AA. And I ain’t doing that.
Can you imagine being so delusional and entitled that as a bottom level unskilled labor employee you would accuse your bosses bosses bosses boss of lying when caught slacking off? AA you need to lock out this useless union and start over. There’s no working with these idiots.
H2,
the problem is that frontline employees can’t figure out how to distinguish between what is union-company posturing and what is a genuine line in the sand that won’t be crossed.
There are mechanisms that either AA or APFA could use to push the labor standoff to a conclusion but neither side is willing to set up a confrontation which will be costly to both sides.
Customer service is the casualty and won’t improve until the company can figure out how to resolve the situation one way or another.
In the meantime, other carriers benefit as the disconnect between what AA and other airlines actually deliver
Based on my experience on a PHL – PHX flight on Thursday, his complaint sounds entirely plausible.
A 20 minute delay rolled to a 3 hour delay out of PHL, Apparently a mechanical and aircraft swap on the inbound equipment but no one could be bothered to share that a 20 minute delay was not possible. There was no way to recover at this point.
We depart on a 5 hour transcon with ONE beverage service the entire flight. Smooth as silk for four hours. F/A’s hidden in the galley for virtually the entire flight.
This is not way to run a “premium” airline. The ticket cost says “real airline” but what you get is Frontier.
He flat out lied and should be called by HR for termination like any other employee for LYING. It will be interesting to see how management handles one of their own when caught in a HUGE LIE………..If I were a FA, I would not accept anything less than a termination of Brady. An apology isn’t going to cut it. He just lost any respect he had.
Mantis, do you have any family or friends that you can turn to for help? I am so very sorry you feel the need to push down on others to raise yourself up.
@Maxine
Or the FAs are lying. If there is video from either side they should post it. A lot of us on the forums fly (or in my case used to fly) AA and know how bad the service can be.
Maxine, how do you KNOW he was lying? As far as what you would “accept” if you were (and you might really be) a an AA flight attendant……nobody cares.
There’s going to be a lot of Spirit flight attendants looking for work in a year or so. You will be replaced.
as a FORMER frequent flyer on the DEN-DFW route, I can confirm that AA is a complete and total mess. After a couple year hiatus I tried them again a few weeks ago. Four legs total in the round trip. Every flight was delayed. Connection missed in DFW. Rude gate agents. Flight attendants in survival mode and the passengers know it. Never again. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
What a weak move. I’ve heard from former TWA’ers at AA that Byrnes is a true clown too caught up in his job title. What a joke!
The guy sounds like a complete tool, but as many others have noted, AA’s FA’s generally provide perfunctory service and have since well before their last pay raise.
Service on AA is a gamble. It’ll either be appropriate or abysmal. There is no in between and we know this.
Now, Brady is an aloof tool who brags about having a Dr. Suess book. He’s the epitome of failing forward and has doubled down that he’s not going anywhere.
The FA side of this makes no sense. They did something to warrant a report from Byrnes. Most likely, one of the FA’s involved had an attitude, which should shock nobody reading this if you’ve flown AA.
The union sucks and a small fraction of their membership doubled down by re-electing the same loser “leadership” that got them in this contentious position they’re in right now.
Byrnes sucks and should be replaced, but, Isom, Vasu, and the rest of the clan in SkyView are committed to running the airline into the ground as the world’s largest regional carrier. Nothing will change.
In the end, the customer loses no matter what these idiots do.
Let’s face it. Mr. Brady Byrnes is a complete failure. He has no leadership skills, hates everyone in his department and treats his managers and flight attendants like beggars at the door.
His narcissism, misogyny and pure contempt for the passengers, employees and shareholders shows in his lackluster performance.
If anyone should be upset, it should be the passengers who pay his inflated salary, bonuses and perks. They should be the first ones to demand his resignation or termination. I have seen Business fares in the $9K-12K one way range to Europe and Mr. Byrnes does not care to improve the product or service.
He is ultimately accountable for the performance of his group and the vendors who provide the disgusting food that is served. There are no longer any amenities from the passenger perspective and AA refuses to compete with the foreign carriers. Pure greed.
He does not care who is hired in present day and has absolutely no image or service standards that he cares to enforce. The real question is “WHY”?
There are so many qualified candidates who could replace Mr. Byrnes for much less money and Mr. Isom refuses to even consider it. The continued abuse of passengers and the employees is the one and only goal of AA management.
Pathetic. All of it.
I don’t believe the flight attendants. If you have flown American Airlines even once in the last 5 years, you know the truth. Team Brady.
Wait. So all the people complaning about the lousy service from flight attendants are defending the Senior Vice President of Inflight and Premium Guest Services? This is the guy who is ultimately responsible for the service you receive. Don’t like flight attendants attitude or how they do their job? It is his fault.
wah, wah, wah, and I don’t even know which side I’m directing that to.
As an AA FA, the comments here are the first time I’ve heard of a “union lockout”. I’m uneducated in this. I googled it and am genuinely curious: How could the company lock us out? The FAA governs that flights must have a certain amount of FAs based on number of doors for evacuations. There are 25,000 of us. If they locked us out, wouldn’t it shut down the airline and hurt the economy as much as if we strike (which is why the government won’t let us strike). I would love if someone could explain if something I’m missing:) Thanks!
I have had terrible service in the premium cabin often. One in five are good. I understand the cabin crew position for the following reasons. Food stamps, not being paid until the door is closed, toxic uniforms and a tyrant like this idiot.
@Bella
Been involved in two lockouts where the unions have been decimated. The first one (involved a paper company) wasn’t able to reach an agreement and knew the union was waiting for other plants contracts to come up so they could strike multiple places and cripple the company. The company in the middle of the night cut new gates off a main highway where picket lines wouldn’t work and locked the normal gates. They spent a week bringing in replacement workers and wouldn’t even negotiate with the union till a judge forced them. Management and replacement workers worked the line. Went on for 20 months and a lot of the workers lost homes and vehicles. In the end the union lost big and there hasn’t been a strike there since (30 years ago). More recently an aircraft subcontractor had the IAM strike. They did the exact same thing. Replacement workers and management. After 9 months the union broke and lost a lot of positions and benefits. Production actually increased and costs went down. The company would have kept going but when their demands were met they couldn’t. In the end it’s a waiting game as union employees can’t make it on strike pay.
@Bella
How this would work with regulations in the airline world I have no idea. Plus with Biden as President that might prevent a lockout also.
AA Flight Attendants are the pettiest bunch and 99% idiots. I mean the result of their national election alone says a lot about this pathetic work group. No one is that stupid (except flight attendants of course) to believe that a senior vice president would throw a fit let alone risk his job over Coke Zero and Cranberry juice. Obviously there’s more to the story. Enough of nonsense galley gossip And go pick up trash.
Byrnes should have left his little brats and ugly wife in their seats and served his own family their juices and diet cokes just to help out, That’s what real management does, they step up, roll up the sleeves and help the team. Another Gucci wearing management type that wouldn’t be mossed if he left tomorrow, Probably just needs to come out of the closet and quit his facade.
Bella
read about NW airlines and their mechanics union.
There is a point where a company says “enough is enough”
And while most people here take either Brady or the FA’s side, the real question is where this all ends up and whether each side is using this incidents (real or not) to achieve their means.
Let’s keep in mind that AA has more FAs based on states with right to work laws than any other airline.
@ H2oman thank you so much for sharing this, very interesting. I just don’t think AA could get 25,000 replacement workers when 6 week training in required by the FAA in order to lock us out and keep the airline running. Plus, surely the Railway Labor Act doesn’t allow the company to do this without permission just as they won’t allow us to strike without their permission due to the economic impact to the nation?
I have never had any real issues flying AA and for some of the hyped up drama queens that have volumes of experiences I SAH would like to see their disposition once onboard. You are travelling from point A to point B……temper your expectations. Even in FC you shouldn’t expect Service delivered on the Concorde. Be pleasant and treat people with respect and it is usually returned graciously. Be an asshat, why wouldn’t they treat you accordingly. As far as this VP of AA, I have yet to hear anything positive about him but I certainly do not fly them because of him.