United Fires Flight Attendants Who Don’t Show Up—Union Says It Violates Their Contract [Roundup]

Comments

1. Gary, I realize union-bashing gets you clicks, but… “as long as the flight attendant accepts the assignment and turns up at base at the required time, it shouldn’t matter where they were before that point” …if that’s accurate, and within a reasonable interpretation of the contract, this isn’t really a story, and no one should be fired, either.

2. On the Africa airlines article, that’s actually some fascinating analysis. While it can get pricey, I’ve had good experiences on the continent, and am especially impressed by Airlink, the South Africa based regional carrier operating an all-Embraer fleet. Now, where’s our resident Africa airline expert, @Sean M, your thoughts, sir?!

3. Sounds like the F/A’s are getting assigned trips when they are not in base and simply calling in sick shortly after the trip assignment. Yup. They aren’t in base and the company needs to put their foot down. Company has to be able to staff its flights not allow crew to come to work at their convenience.

4. I agree that if the F/A accepts the assignment, and makes it to the assignment, then who cares where they were and when. However, if they are not in base when they are on like a 2-hour call-out, and then call sick when assigned a trip, then one could say that 1.) if they were sick, they should have called sick from being on reserve and not gotten to the point of being assigned a trip, 2.) they called sick because they couldn’t figure out how to get to base. I worked at an airline where if you called sick from a trip the company could, by contract, request a doctor evaluation. Issue was that in that event better make sure that doctor is in the city where you claimed to be.

5. “Coffee Please” is exactly right. When the hiring frenzy started after the COVID debacle, a new group of people were applying for jobs to fill the vacancies in all fields. Many do not have the work ethic that is required for the job. I’ve seen it happen. The flight is ready to board but a few flight attendants haven’t arrived. Without a full complement, the FARs do not allow boarding. So, scheduling is called. They call the recalcitrant attendant(s). “Oh, we have a chance to go water skiing. We’re calling in sick.” Scheduling then calls another reserve F/A who shows up but it takes them 2 hours to get to the airport. YOU KNOW THE RULES WHEN YOU ARE HIRED AND TRAINED! OK, eventually the airline will fire them. Now, when they apply for a new job, that specter will hang over them. The airline will (if they are smart) will only say, “The individual was fired for cause. No, we will not rehire them.” In the words of “Saturday Night Live”, “Buh bye!” “1990”…this happens ALL THE TIME. At some point, the company (airline or otherwise) has to put the foot down…union or otherwise.

6. @NedsKid, @Coffee Please — If the current staffing model is unreliable, the solution is to negotiate new terms at the bargaining table, not to unilaterally rewrite the rules. Fraudulent sick leave is a separate issue that should be handled through existing disciplinary policies (some due process, please), not automatic firing. United is attempting to invent a ‘must be in town’ rule that doesn’t exist in the contract to solve an operational problem.

7. @Win Whitmire — No, you and @Coffee Please are merely parroting management’s position. You’re advocating for a double-standard, where crews are strictly held to made-up rules that aren’t even in the contract, while management is free to ignore the contract whenever it’s convenient.

8. I await @Tim Dunn to step-in here (and inevitably dunk on United), but anyone could reasonably argue that Delta and American (so, again, ironically not necessarily a ‘union’-issue, more of an operational-decision ‘thing’) are handling the same issue (commuting, bases, etc.) better at-times, because they’re not attempting to solve an operational problem with harsh discipline or overt threats of termination.

   The reality remains that junior crews will continue to commute, regardless of the consequences, until the economic barriers to living in hub cities are resolved (much bigger topic). So, either United can start paying a living-wage and contractually impose that crews literally live near ORD, EWR, IAD, SFO, etc., or expect some of the commuters to miss some of their assignments. It doesn’t mean those junior crews are always ‘gaming’ the system, necessarily.

9. My understanding is that there are two types of reserve. Hot reserve means you sit at in a crew room at a base waiting to be assigned. BTW, most airlines allow reserve crew the option to possibly self assigned which means maybe a better trip and doing something other than sitting around.

   The second type you are either at home if you live at base or at a hotel or crash pad and have two hours to report if called. (Some airport hotels if commuting crew very reasonable rates.) If you’re at off base and involves getting on a two hour flight you’re not making it. If no show you deserve to be fired.

   Airlines are very upfront about this when you get hired. Don’t like it, go work at Walmart.

10. I bet the robot wouldn’t have walked straight into the pool.

11. @1990 – If you read the Bloomberg article that is linked in the Africanist piece cited above, I’m actually quoted there and you can see my views 🙂

12. @Sean M. — Oh, wow! I see that now! I should have known, since it referenced Ghana!

13. @1990, Well, reading the contract, UA isn’t exactly going out of bounds. And “should be addressed at the bargaining table” goes for the union too.

    Under the base rules of reserve period, once the reserve period starts, per 8.K.3, “a Ready Reserve will be subject to contact at any time and must be available by keeping the Company advised of where they she/he can be reached.”

    If they are on a plane and can’t answer the phone, that doesn’t work. Furthermore,

    8.O.6.
    A Reserve shall not be deemed unavailable for contact unless Crew Scheduling has made three (3) calls over thirty (30) minutes spaced approximately ten (10) minutes apart.

    8.O.6.(a).
    Alternatively, a Flight Attendant may choose to receive text messages in lieu of phone calls.

    8.O.6.(b).
    A Flight Attendant shall have ten minutes (:10) following the last contact (call or text) from Crew Scheduling to respond or be deemed unavailable for contact.

    While being on a plane if they have been assigned a trip, which the contract says they’ll make every effort to allow 3 hours to make it, they can be assigned in less time when a plane is sitting waiting with passengers until a crew member arrives, in which case the flight attendant has to get there as soon as possible not to exceed 3 hours. I can see this open to interpretation certainly. But it’s also poor customer service (though we know customer service has no bearing on work rules, neither for company nor union).

    There is also a rule against traveling on your benefits when you are supposed to be at work. So, you’re required by contract to be in contact during said period, you go somewhere you cannot be contacted by telephone or SMS text message, then you aren’t where you’re supposed to be. If you were in the car driving from Madison, WI to ORD arriving an hour after the start of your reserve period, yeah, you’d be in communication.

    But the contract says you have to be where you can be reached and have to call back within 10 minutes of a call (you can get notified via text but you have to telephone them back within 10 minutes), regardless of your physical location, being on an airplane doesn’t qualify.

    Should they be fired for abuse number 1 of this? Only if that’s what the discipline says. But if it’s someone habitually doing it and one more is the final step out the door, especially someone on probation, then well, that’s the consequence.

    Please tell me if I’ve thought this out in the wrong way. Fair or not, this is the contract language.

14. In the end, what needs to happen is the established process of going to arbitration over this interpretation to rule on what is correct. Especially with new contracts where lots changes, this is just as important a step as the initial negotiation.

15. NedsKid is on target.

    The only notable addition is that UA and its FAs JUST negotiated a new contract – and didn’t address the issue of reserves because, wait, wait, senior FAs aren’t about to give up anything in order to help junior and newhire FAs.

    AA went through this same issue recently – Gary has discussed it.

    If you are a reserve and a commuter, it is not only costly to pay to be in base to fulfill your job requirements and it creates very poor QOL.

    the DL difference is that they spread reserve assignments across all FAs – including senior FAs.

16. Comair ended up having a commuter clause (at least for pilots) after their strike. It was very expensive (and where is Comair today – for a variety of reasons?). One of my college roommates was at Comair. As a Captain, he bid reserve. He was on a long call reserve meaning he didn’t have to be in base – had to be notified like 12 hours in advance of report or something. At the end he was DTW-based and sat on his family owned golf course in central Florida while on reserve because he could. He was senior enough to hold a line but why do that when you can sit at home and collect 76 hours of pay a month? Sometimes he had to fly because he wouldn’t be qualified anymore if he didn’t go fly one trip. But if he was called, under the commuter clause, he had to make an effort to get to base on two different flights. So he would list himself on the two most oversold routings to DTW from MCO. Then wouldn’t make it on the flight, so Comair could either release him (with pay) or positive space him to his assignment. Sounds like a pretty good deal for the pilot huh?

17. Fraud in airline hosting is a good thing. People should stop whining about flight staff who want to have fun!

18. Now, it’s a party!

    @NedsKid — United is conflating “being reachable” with “being in a specific ZIP code.” If a reserve is reachable and answers in 10 minutes, they are compliant. United is attempting to enforce a physical location requirement that isn’t in the text.

    @Tim Dunn — Yeah, under-paid junior crews are indeed subsidizing the system; as are regional subsidiaries, operating as United Express or Delta Connection, for example. The answer remains better negotiations, not letting management unilaterally redefine “availability” to solve their own staffing failures. Huh, I thought you’d hold no punches against your nemesis, #1 United Airlines…

19. @1990: Let’s go back to the source article… it didn’t say in a specific zip code. It said in base or, “within a three-hour travel time from the moment the reserve period starts.” They are not in position if they are not somewhere that they are 1.) reachable at the moment they are required to be reachable, and 2.) cannot report within 3 hours as allowed by the contract. If you are based at Chicago and you’re listed on a flight leaving San Diego 5 minutes after your reserve period begins, you are out of position.

    If they are reachable and answer within 10 minutes, great, that is part of it. They won’t get dinged for not being reachable. But if they aren’t where they can report to newly assigned flight within 3 hours, then how are they complying with the contract? If they are within 3 hours of base at the moment the reserve block starts, to assume they could get called 1 minute after that time, then why would they be listed and checked in for said flight from SAN to ORD that’s occurring at the same time?

    Being reachable and answering in 10 minutes is step 1. You could be in Kazakhstan or in theory in orbit and comply with that as long as the company has your number and one alternate contact number for your location. Step 2 is being able to accept an assignment that begins 2:59:59 from when you finish saying hello. Not being in a location where you can comply with the second half is failure to report. So they call out sick. The contract addresses what to do to call out sick while on reserve, including the night before to absolve you from being on call.

20. @NedsKid — If 3-hours is the defined term, that’s what they’d need to work with, which could mean a drive from Gary, Indiana, to ORD, or a flight from Detroit or Pittsburgh, but probably not 5 hours away, like San Diego, or, yeah, Kazakhstan (it’s United, so why not Mongolia or Greenland?), or, umm, sure, the freakin’ International Space Station (Wait, United’s hiring astronauts for flight attendants; how can they afford that commute?). Bonus points for creativity!

21. Come on folks, having owned my own successful business that my Grandfather started, I had about 50 people employed in a multimillion dollar business. Every employee (including the family) signed for a “handbook” that explained the “rules of the road”…what we expected of them and what they could expect from us. Kinda like a “contract”. We realize that “things happen” and we can accommodate that. Habitual issues had to be dealt with on an individual basis that could involve termination. Flight attendants KNOW the contract rules from “day one”. They KNOW that they might not get the base of choice and THEY MUST either be able to do the job or not. If the contract says they must be within a certain time frame of the airport, THAT’s the number they have to work with (just like 1990 says) BUT…knowing that contracted rule does not excuse habitual tardiness or downright “screw this…I’m taking a sick day”. We sold our business because a company made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. Playing with airplanes is a lot more fun!

22. @Win Whitmire — Congrats on inheriting your grandfather’s multimillion-dollar business. You’re living the American (sorry, I mean, ‘aristocratic’) dream! I kid, I kid… for real, that’s a lot of work and often impossible some ‘expectations’ to fulfill. It’s often a balancing act. Seriously, I do appreciate and have enjoyed the nuanced discussions this topic has inspired.

23. @1990: True. But driving from Gary they can answer the phone. And a flight from DTW, I guess if you’re aligned correctly with a scheduled flight, sitting at the Detroit airport (and remember at ORD have to change terminals). But either way, being listed on a plane is saying you will be out of contact during the time you’re obligated to be in contact.

    It’s a game they are playing. They don’t like how it has turned out. So take it to arbitration and get a binding ruling on what it means and both sides abide. That’s how this works.

24. 1990, thanks for the compliment but I didn’t inherit anything. When my Grandfather died in 1949, my Dad took over the struggling business when he got out of the Navy after WW II. Dad worked his butt off with a wife and (then) 2 little kids at home. I went to work in the warehouse when I was 12. I pulled orders, swept the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, every grunt job available. The warehouse manager had orders that I was just another warehouse worker…AND HE MADE SURE that I did every job, too! There was NO MERCY! I actually enjoyed it. Never ONCE did I complain to my Dad but Dad did get a “status report” on me all the time. He never told me what to do. The warehouse manager did! At 13, I accompanied a delivery driver every summer workday. Many times the driver would have me make the actual delivery. At 16, I learned to drive a stick shift truck and had my own delivery route. Yeah, my last name was on the trucks but… When I came home from work, my Mom wouldn’t allow me anywhere near the dinner table unless I took a shower! My three younger siblings all joined the firm as they got older. We all started in the warehouse, too! Even my Sister worked in the warehouse! My youngest brother was put on a drafting table when he was 10. To this day, he’s still on a “drafting table” (CAD) and is in the same industry my family was in.