Tag Archives for flight attendants.
The FAA has decided that the workload in ensuring business class suite doors are in their correct position is significant. These doors generally have to be open during taxi, take-off, and landing. And that extra work means that airlines have to staff cabin crew beyond otherwise-required minimums (of 1 flight attendant per 50 seats) for planes with doors.
The American Airlines flight attendants union has told its members, “We do not believe further negotiations will be scheduled prior to the National Mediation Board determining to release the parties into a thirty-day cooling-off period. All American Airlines Flight Attendants should prepare for an upcoming strike.”
American Airlines and its flight attendants union were in Washington, D.C. this week for what the Association of Professional Flight Attendants described as ‘last ditch’ talks before a strike. Leaks from the National Mediation Board suggested that if a deal wasn’t reached by early June, flight attendants would be released to strike.
However the week’s negotiations ended, there is no deal – and no declared impasse by the National Mediation Board.
I’m increasingly worried that American Airlines flight attendants are being led down a bad path for someone else’s agenda.
Senator Bernie Sanders and a majority of Senate Democrats may have just given the National Mediation Board the political cover they need to allow a strike.
If this plays out as the union hopes – released to strike, and (assuming the company doesn’t fold to their demands) actually striking – American Airlines flight attendants could elect Donald Trump as President.
Without getting into debates of whom you wish to see win the election, I point this out because it’s likely not whom they wish to see as President on the whole.
At the beginning of the year, one American Airlines flight attendant put out a warning to aspiring cabin crew: don’t become a flight attendant unless you’re going to Delta. You’d think that efforts to unionize flight attendants at Delta face an uphill battle – and they do.
That’s why the latest tactics of Sara Nelson’s AFA-CWA are so interesting.
The Alaska Airlines flight attendants union, whose members have already overwhelmingly authorized a strike, says that they’re giving negotiations “the next two weeks” and that they “won’t wait” to take the next steps towards a strike after that.
The smart thing would have been to take the money since nothing was required in exchange – it was literally just allowing the airline to increase paychecks without a new contract or accepting any company terms whatsoever. You don’t leave free money on the table especially when you… need the money. This would have set a new baseline to negotiate upwards from.
American Airlines is offering a 17% raise and increased profit sharing to its flight attendants immediately, without waiting for a new contract. The union just has to allow them to pay cabin crew more, and doesn’t have to give anything up in return. That’s the message that airline CEO Robert Isom sent in the form of a video directly to flight attendants today.
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 »
