Tag Archives for flight attendants.
The union reported at the end of last week that they’ve come to an agreement over how to handle flight attendants who ‘sell their seniority’ (a group known as ‘the cartel’) offering up their trips to more junior crew in exchange for cash ($200 on average) or other favors.
Pilots have a lot more sway at airlines than flight attendants. It’s harder to become a pilot, in part because government regulations make doing so time-consuming and costly. That makes it hard to replace pilots. Pilots also have a lot more say over an airline’s operation, so can slow it down dramatically.
Those are important reasons why pilots are paid more. They receive better benefits. And their life on the road often features better hotels, better ground transportation, and higher meal allowances. Is that… fair?
British Airways is seeing low customer satisfaction scores and testing increased flight attendant staffing on its worst-performing routes to see whether or not that moves the needle.
United Airlines wants flight attendants to greet customers and thank them. They want cabin crew to offer to hang coats in premium cabins and offer pre-departure beverages. And they don’t want crew gossiping loudly in the galley.
If the airline’s flight attendants can do this, United believes they will earn a revenue premium since they argue that research suggests “service is more important to customers than price.”
A little over a year ago United Airlines fired two senior flight attendants who were union leaders. A junior crewmember reported their mask violations, and then the two senior crew solicited false conduct reports against the junior flight attendant in retaliation. United uncovered this, and had no choice but to fire the union reps.
It turns out United fired six senior flight attendants for bullying junior crew. And the six flight attendants are suing for age discrimination.
The airline wants to prevent a mass exodus of staff when they need those staff most. So they impose penalties for using sick time at inconvenient times even when someone is sick (and likely to get customers sick, too). In years past sick calls with documentation were excused but under the point system, they aren’t.
Even before the pandemic United cut flight attendant staffing in business class. They replaced proper plating of meals in the galley by a flight attendant with less attractive pre-plated meals.
The union wants staffing levels restored, and to pressure the airline as part of slow-moving contract negotiations they’re asking flight attendants to report their own poor service.
9,000 people signed a petition asking Delta Air Lines to reconsider. Delta did not respond to the petition.
Now the AFA-CWA union, which is trying to organize Delta flight attendants, is using that to drum up anger at the airline that might help their cause.
American Airlines is cracking down on flight attendants who aren’t wearing their uniforms correctly, or who violate the carrier’s appearance standards. A message went out from a flight service manager to flight attendants earlier this week. It announces a goal of 100% uniform compliance, and warns that flight service managers will be in airports conducting checks and to write up crew.
Cabin crew at American, Southwest, United, Alaska, Spirit and JetBlue are all unionized. flight attendants at Delta Air Lines are not. This not only helps AFA-CWA avoid the costs of its support for the original lawsuit seeking to have airlines covered by state rest rules, it helps them in their battle to unionize Delta.
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 »
