United Airlines will pay flight attendants not to take a hotel room for the night during layovers on their trips. This is called the “Hotel Gainsharing” program, and pays “at least $20 per night based on how much United saves in canceling a hotel room that it no longer requires.”
- They might see friends and family during an overnight stay
- Or “take a trip during their layover that will necessitate them spending the night away from their crew hotel,” which is common when traveling abroad and the stay is more than just one night
- They could also share a room with another crewmember
- But they can pick up this extra money regardless of where they’d spend the night – crashing on a couch with a friend, crashing on a couch in a hotel lobby, or even at the airport.
This saves the company money and shares that savings with the crewmember. However once the flight attendant selects the program for a trip, they can’t back out of it. If their plans change they’re on the hook for where to stay (again, a hotel lobby or the airport!).
The hotel they’re giving up may not be so great to begin with. A year ago the United Airlines flight attendants union advised crewmembers to pack flashlights and latex gloves in order to inspect for bed bugs when they check into airline-provided hotel rooms.
- So they could check the mattress for bed bug remains
- Which means looking at the corner of the mattress, seams, and labels
- And while the headboard is a place bed bugs can be found, crew were warned not to actually remove the headboard because they could be liable for damage.
Flight attendants were also advised to use hard sided luggage rather than fabric, because those surfaces are harder for bedbugs to attach to, and to keep luggage off of floors, beds, and couches. The best place for luggage is on a luggage rack… or bathtub.
Of course, at rival American Airlines, the crew accommodation system was so broken that a few years ago pilots were sleeping in hotel lobbies and not by choice, and flight attendants were sleeping at the airport. At United it’s only supposed to happen voluntarily, and crew get paid.
When the crews are sleeping on floors, are they getting the adequate amount of crew rest?
I think the most likely approach would be that crew would start sharing rooms to get the benefit of the savings. However, I don’t think $20 will result in many participants.
At around $50, there would likely be a lot of younger FAs that would just at the chance to increase their income by room sharing.
You;re such an idiot Gary… we do.not get offers $20 to sleep in hotel lobbies. The stupidity of your article is amazing.
My god…who wants to travel on an airline where the crew shows up without proper rest, hygiene or even looking like crew. And these are the same crews which the airline makes such a big deal about “timing out” for “passenger safety reasons? I’m in the hotel business. I do not know of any hotel contracts that provide rates of <$80/night in most cities. If crew is that desperate for cash that they need to sleep in a lobby and forgo rest and a shower to earn $20, they need to find another job. The genius at UA needs to be fired. And the union leadership should be too. No. Just no
I can guarantee this will not fly if it’s even true. Ridiculous. As far as bed bugs, you can find those even in the most expensive hotels in the World. It just takes the guest before you to drag one in from their suitcase.
The hai sharing program is for two reasons only –
1. If you commute to base and have a layover in your home city. You go home and not the hotel. Collect the 20 bucks.
2. Staying with a friend/family.
You go there. Collect the 20 bucks.
Saying FAs are sleeping in lobbies or airports is so massively misleading and plainly false as to put the credibility of this entire website into serious question.
@Gary… I’m here mostly for the entertainment value of watching the inane debates between the various political mobs but your headline this really goes beyond what you have ever done before in order to get clicks.
You can’t be THAT desperate can you?
*gainsharing
Twenty WHOLE dollars? Wow! Let no one say that Scott Kirby is a soulless bean counter.
The hotels which the legacy major US and Western European airlines use for flight crew members coming off intercontinental long-haul flights to foreign continents for them are generally the same kind of hotels I stay at on most of my one-night trips — not lousy but sufficiently ok+ that I repeat use of them.
But the domestic hotels for some of these airlines or their contract carriers? Some of those have been places I would rather avoid, but others are ok enough — such as the Hyatt Regency Ohare.
I was in a hotel earlier this week where the cheap rooms go for $600+ per night and while I was in the lobby I noticed a dog come in with a guy in a uniform of sort. The dog was there for a bed bug hunting expedition after a couple of guests had reported bed bugs and shown what were probably indicative bite marks to the hotel staff along with pictures of something.
Hey, Scott, instead of paying 200-300/night for your hotel in Reno- you can sleep in my garage for free. It’s even partially heated and is larger than your hotel room but you would have to sleep between cars. No gasoline vapors either as they are electric.
Put the savings into the FAs health and welfare fund.
Horrible the way airline employees are treated. End of rant.
Then they have to pay for their own way back to the airport lol no one is falling for that. Worked at a hotel with crew they are always given an airport shuttle ride and if the van is broken we uber them at no cost.