Tag Archives for flight attendants.
United Airlines, which claims its de-escalation procedures have led to a 50% reduction in passenger incidents, has sent a memo to flight attendants reminding them that they are never to duct tape passengers to their seats.
Two men ‘huffed’ at a flight attendant when asked to put on their shoes for the plane’s takeoff as the aircraft taxied out. The crewmember appears to have escalated the encounter, and asked the pilot to head back to the gate – where police were called and armed officers entered the aircraft to remove the men who were described as “disobedient.”
Video of the incident shows other passengers objecting to what was going down. You can hear “don’t get off” and “sit down.” The men were allowed to stay, and the flight attendants were taken off.
The American Airlines flight attendants union has filed a grievance against the airline because, it says, cabin crew are being forced to “in airports and outside of baggage claim” because they can’t get rooms on their layovers. And they report that pilots “are dealing with the same issues.”
Occasionally things have gotten out of hand, and passengers have become violent. There’s a much greater proportion of leisure passengers now, and first-time passengers, than ever before (“every airline’s passengers are Spirit Airlines passengers now”) and we’ve seen video of shocking confrontations that became violent against cabin crew. Those are so shocking, in part, because they are also still so unusual.
However the American Airlines flight attendants union is telling its members that if things escalate to create an unsafe situation, getting law enforcement involved may not be enough. They should get the FBI involved.
When David Dao was dragged off of a United Express aircraft and bloodied, the carrier outsourced the dirty work to Chicago Aviation Police.
The TSA, though, has a program to teach flight attendants how to do this themselves. It’s been suspended during the pandemic. But the TSA announced today that they are bringing it back because of the rise of onboard incidents, mostly centered around masks.
JetBlue was born at New York JFK, with slots gifted like so much manna from heaven by Senator Chuck Schumer. But JetBlue no longer drinks from the New York Kool-Aid, they’ve talked about moving down to Florida and they’ve built up flights at Newark.
Schedule data from Cirium Diio Mi shows that JetBlue is operating 1685 flights to 29 destinations from Newark this month. However they don’t have the infrastructure at Newark to support their current ambitions.
While the TSA began requiring passengers to select a gender as part of their security identification system, passengers can now choose ‘unspecified’ or ‘undisclosed’ just as many states now offer an “X” for gender on their drivers licenses. But flight attendants can’t choose X when selecting a uniform to wear.
The airline maintained that social distancing on board wasn’t necessary because of HEPA air filtration, downward air flow, cleaning regimens and masking. Yet they continued blocking some seats to maintain distance for flight attendants.
That policy ended, too, on May 1.
American Airlines sent a memo to flight attendants on Monday called ‘Moments That Matter’ which encourages them to be prepared to avoid even slight delays that could stand in the way of exact on-time departures. Unfortunately for employee morale it came off as patronizing.
One tip, aimed at flight attendants who are scheduled to work reserve, has incited a anger – and a response from the union. American told flight attendants that they may need to skip meals.
After paying flight attendants not to work during the pandemic, thanks to government subsidies, American Airlines plans to fly more than 90% of the seats they flew domestically in the summer of 2019 this summer, and 80% of the seats they flew internationally.
American recalled all of their flight attendants from furlough to work these flights Even then that’s not enough.
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 »
