Tag Archives for flight attendants.
Customers often don’t like it. It isn’t something that should be done before 8 a.m. or in the morning prior to arrival at the end of a redeye. But ultimately the people most likely to take an airline’s credit card are the people who are actually already flying the airline.
United Airlines flight attendants don’t have to social distance from each other in the galley. On long haul flights they’re in close contact with customers as they serve beverages and even meals. But the airline is telling them that as a Covid precaution they need to stop sharing beds up in the crew rest area of widebody aircraft.
It’s no surprise now to see him take to LinkedIn to tell the story of a flight attendant encounter, emphasizing why he sees more government subsidies for airlines as important. Only this time his argument is that his airline, which furloughed more employees than any other carrier by a wide margin, has gotten too old. Or at least that a flight attendant tells him that furloughing younger employees means they now miss the youth on board their planes.
This is a plan not just to fly less, but to offer less. Flight attendants are unhappy because it means each one working international and premium domestic flights will be working more during each trip, without being paid more.
Airlines generally have specially picked cabin crew for public relations and VIP events. These flights aren’t assigned by seniority at many airlines.
Delta Air Lines won’t be furloughing any flight attendants this year, even as its largest competitors lay off thousands.
Last Labor Day Delta gave its non-union workforce a big raise. This Labor Day their flight attendants get to keep their jobs. Delta has made a strong argument to its flight attendants not to unionize.
The note a disgruntled passenger passed to an American Airlines flight attendant has gone viral. In the note, the passenger objected to being told their mask had to cover their nose and called the crewmember “a glorified MAID” a “mask nazi” who should be “cleaning motel rooms for $2 tips and meth” and that her life is “a waste.”
An American Airlines flight attendant received a note from a passenger last this week that may be about the worst thing I’ve ever read. The woman who wrote the note had been asked to wear her mask over her nose.
The passenger apparently complied – but later decided to share what she thought of the flight attendant, who had simply asked her to follow airline policy, which was agreed to as a condition of flying. The note contained words that may haunt this passenger for a very long time.
The American Airlines flight attendants union, Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), is exceptionally weak. They’ve been dysfunctional for years. I’ve written in the past about efforts by the larger Association of Flight Attendants, which is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America and AFL-CIO, to get their nose in under the tent.
Reading through the mid-August minutes of the APFA’s Executive Committee meeting I was initially struck by just three things.
Furloughs shrink the union budget, but non-paying union members can’t vote. Taking the newest hires out of the equation protects old guard union leadership. The union was already weakened, having squandered its cash, and has been downright docile during the Covid crisis. But the company has lost all of its leverage by furloughing flight attendants, rather than holding out the potential to minimize furloughs in exchange for a concessionary contract.
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 »
