[Roundup] What’s Even The Point Of The American Airlines Flight Attendants Union?

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • First-ever mother-daughter duo pilot commercial plane together at regional carrier SkyWest (HT: Tommy L.)

  • Woman Arrested, Accused Of Shooting Ex-Boyfriend In Hotel

  • American Airlines is downsizing its Phoenix flight attendant base. This means displacing flight attendants who started April 26, 2004. But what’s amazing to me is the flight attendants union communication about this. What’s the point in even having a union if it’s literally a mouthpiece for the company? 

    APFA continues to justify the company’s decisions. Their messaging could have been ghostwritten by corpcomm, “American Airlines continues to adapt to the new reality of operating a very different airline during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. …Our airline is struggling and will need to quickly reshape to match the current demand and pricing environment.”  

  • Suspect barricades himself inside, vandalizes hotel room

  • How Ryanair trolled President Trump over the election

  • More propaganda to discourage people from using good masks. Masks with valves are banned from many airlines because they don’t protect other people from you. And it’s true that an N95 mask that isn’t fitted isn’t as protective as one that is, or facial hair could cause some unfiltered air to enter, but that doesn’t imply you should just wear a cloth or single ply disposable mask. An imperfectly-fitted N95 is still going to be better than a cloth mask for heaven forbid a neck gaiter. But sure, keep pushing the line that only health care professionals know how to wear ‘the good masks’.

    We need more production of good masks and to get people to watch a YouTube video on how to ear them, not to be discouraging people from using good masks with ‘noble lies’.

  • Inside the new Kuwait Airways Airbus A330-800neo. (HT: @conratravel)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. LADbible, more like BEHINDTHETIMESbible – that mother daughter flying duo is old news. The skywest blog post linked from the article is timestamped May.

  2. I feel like this is one of the first times the union hasn’t been out of their minds… weren’t you just criticizing the head in the sand nature of “full pay to the last day”? Don’t discourage the few times unions have realized the reality of the situation and want to work collaboratively to make sure a business survives

  4. An N95 mask with a valve gives no protection to others if the wearer has CoVid19! It is only to be used if a wearer is in a toxic environment and to protect only the wearer.
    Most N95 masks don’t have a valve and those are effective against CoVid19. Gary, you are doing a gross disservice giving this medically inaccurate info a podium.

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