A first class passenger on Alaska flight 142 from Juneau to Seattle on Thursday shared their experience at the start of the flight. They asked for coffee once they had boarded and were safely ensconced in their seat. What the flight attendant told them was shocking.

Passenger gets on the plane and asks the flight attendant if she could get a coffee, she is in seat 3a. The FA responds, maybe, it depends on how nice I’m feeling, I don’t get paid until the door closes and we don’t work for free… I mean, a “no, I’m sorry, we don’t offer beverages until we are in the air” would work, but …. it, let’s be rude and introduce our drama to a random person…”

The customer is right here. While Alaska Airlines in particular isn’t known for offering predeparture beverages (other than water) in first class, the issue isn’t the drink it’s bringing contract issues into the cabin with customers.

• Not doing predeparture beverages in first class is a huge missed opportunity. American Airlines, which has its own predeparture beverage challenges, found that they are a key driver of premium customer satisfaction.And when customers are sitting in first class, having boarded first, with a drink in their hands happy that is marketing to every customer walking by them who might someday buy that premium product too.
• If a decision has been mad not to have it as a service element – at the end of the pandemic, American surveyed whether they really needed to bring this back – then politely saying though would suffice.
• But galley gossip within earshot of customers is bad enough – complaining about matters between them and the company is far worse.

The contract that Alaska Airlines voted down offered 32% raises over 3 years, retro pay, and boarding pay.

But the idea that flight attendants ‘aren’t being paid until doors close’ is perhaps one of the biggest misunderstandings cabin crew have.

1. Hourly rates paid for flight time are meant to include time spent boarding and deplaning.
2. Unions generally had not pushed for boarding pay, because they preferred higher hourly rates instead. That’s because senior union members tend to take fewer, longer flights and benefit more than higher wages. It’s a way of redistributing pay from junior employees to employees with greater seniority.
3. Then non-union Delta introduced boarding pay as a true add-on. It was on top of existing pay. And unions had to start negotiating for it. Delta had embarrassed them.
4. But in contracts like the new one at American, some senior flight attendants have been unhappy – they know this isn’t free money, and boarding pay means lower pay rates than they would have been able to negotiate otherwise. It is money out of senior crew pockets back into the hands of junior crew (who are the ones paid very little, that have been the face of union bargaining campaigns).

Alaska Airlines usually provides good service, though it frequently isn’t as good as it used to be. Maybe it’s having absorbed Virgin America? They’re going to be digesting Hawaiian now, which surprisingly doesn’t have as good a service offering as you’d expect.

They’ll integrate seniority lists, which can be rocky, though they promise to maintain separate brands which at least allows some continuity in existing service standards if they so choose. (This will be interesting, when legacy Alaska crew work Hawaiian flights and vice versa, so some standardization is going to be needed.)