American Airlines is reportedly moving toward grading its flight attendants, which (as you might imagine) is not going over well with cabin crewmembers.
American Airlines Will Start Scoring Flight Attendants
American Airlines is rolling out a new internal system that will assign performance scores to flight attendants, based on a mix of customer feedback and operational data.
The program, first flagged by aviation insider JonNYC, is based on roughly 12 months of collected data and will evaluate individual flight attendants across several metrics.
Those include:
- Customer experience, based largely on post-flight surveys and Net Promoter Scores (NPS)
- Operational contribution (not clearly defined yet)
- Delays attributed to flight attendants
- Internal compliance and performance metrics
You can see more specific metrics below, including:
- Individual CSS Score (30%)
- Customer Complaints (25%)
- FA Reports By Flight (20%)
- MyFlight App Use (15%)
- Pre-Departure Beverage Survey (10%)
Things along these lines pic.twitter.com/HG5qul4Nmj
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) April 21, 2026
This Is A Big Shift For A U.S. Carrier
U.S. airlines have historically avoided individual performance scoring for flight attendants, relying instead on seniority and broad evaluations rather than data-driven rankings. American is effectively introducing a system that:
- Ranks flight attendants against one another
- Uses passenger feedback as a core input
- Attempts to tie operational reliability to individual performance
While similar systems exist at some international carriers, this is a notable shift for a U.S. legacy airline. At least for now, the scores appear to be informational rather than punitive, with no clear link yet to pay, scheduling, or discipline.
The Problem With Measuring Service Like This
On paper, more accountability sounds like a good idea (we all see lazy flight attendants from time to time who should be held accountable). But in practice, it can certainly get very messy, especially with the metrics are outside the control of the individual flight attendant.
A broken seat or bad catering (as we’ve seen in London) can all drag down scores, even if a flight attendant performs well.
And delays attributed to flight attendants are not always within their control:
- Passengers slow to board
- Carry-on baggage issues
- Medical situations
Yet those may still show up in performance metrics.
That raises a bigger issue: this system may end up measuring the flight, but not the flight attendant…at least not fairly.
Expect Major Pushback (It Has Already Started)
It is hard to imagine this rolling out without resistance. American’s flight attendants are already in a tense relationship with management, and introducing a scoring system that may pit employees against each other is unlikely to help. For example, here’s flight attendant Heather Poole, who just celebrated her 30th anniversary with AA:
On the one hand, she makes a valid point. Flight attendants do not control whether IFE systems work or whether food is edible. On the other hand, a good FA can always be gracious and polite and should be able to serve pre-departure beverages or thank passengers for their AAdvantage loyalty.
What shocks me about AA flight attendants is about how open and direct they are to badmouth their company. While I think in many cases the criticism is justified, it also strikes me as highly unprofessional to bash your company in front of your customers…yet it happens all the time.
Since I’ve become a “free agent” I’ve flown AA lot more than in years past, and I find most flight attendants are excellent…and they want to deliver a good product. But there’s such a disconnect and lack of trust between management and the front line and I fear this new scoring system will only exacerbate it, ultimately undermining AA’s goal of providing better service onboard.
CONCLUSION
American Airlines is trying something new: bringing data-driven performance scoring to its flight attendants.
In theory, that could improve accountability and consistency onboard. But in reality, it is likely to create more friction than improvement, especially if the airline cannot clearly separate individual performance from broader operational issues.
What do you think about AA’s new scoring system?
image: AA
This is a difficult to solve problem. FAs should not be hostage to customer reviews. However, FAs should strive to do good work and should not be allowed to be mini-dictators.
Ultimately, it is the personal work ethic and honesty that is important. It’s hard to legislate for that. In everyday life, a contractor doing major remodeling or construction in your house is the same way. You can put all the verbiage you want in the contract but if the contractor is fundamentally dishonest, you will get a shoddy job. That is not to say guidelines and contracts are not important.
Show me any union that wants their members reviewed and rated based on their performance. It’s all about collecting those dues and defending members for any misdeeds short of murder.
American like every airline has good, bad and indifferent employees. Any attempt to elevate and reward good performance while calling out underperforming ones is a positive. But the defenders of mediocre performance will come up with all kinds of excuses on why this isn’t fair.
A very slippery slope like user generated online reviews of hotels and restaurants. Without specific criteria, could get very messy and unfair in some cases. AA really needs to analyze the data for a period before rolling this out. Another possibility is to focus on customers who take the time to write a formal note to American after a flight. I feel like that feedback (good or bad) is more intentional than a survey response or a rage post in some cases.
Here’s the thing, though – if a restaurant has 300 five-star reviews and a single one-star review that warns of a “terrible dinner”, how much stock will you place in that one-star review? It’s the same for staff appraisals – if a crew member is consistently “very good” or “excellent’, it’s safe to assume that the “very poor” rating they got today was from a disgruntled asshole who’s upset by some triviality, and can safely be ignored.
Bad idea. Going to get abused. If anyone deserves grades, it’s management: F.
You notice that they take in consideration the customer complaints but not compliments. I work for AA and was recently called in to discuss a customer complaint. The compliant was that I ruined a passenger’s experience by repeatedly asking her to comply with FAR regulation. My manager said that although asking her to comply was correct, the passenger wasn’t pleased with the tone of voice or the delivery. Anyways, I got written up for it, along with getting a negative performance point. I asked my manager, since have a few dozen compliments from passengers, does one compliment negate the negative. Manager flat out said they have nothing to do with each other and they wont cancel each other out. Which told me anything positive has no bearing to the company. They choose to only see the negative.
Ugh… That’s definitely your manager’s problem! The correct response to the passenger would be a short, curtly-phrased email reminding them that compliance with all lawful crew instructions is a non-negotiable requirement. Case closed.
Seems like AA couldn’t do any worse in their move to a more ‘premium’ airline, the way this system is designed. Why put so much weight on pax opinions ? I’d hope the union will fight this on behalf of their membership. Meanwhile , ” the beatings will continue until morale improves..” … Sadly, there may be more repercussions in inferior service …
well then those who deliver subpar service will be found out I guess. What the passengers don’t matter?
This kind of sounds like having a job in corporate America. You are constantly judged on your performance, often have blame shifted to you when things aren’t your fault, and advance not on your own ability or performance, but by other peoples perceptions of you.
At least metrics like serving a PDB are tangible. You either do it or you don’t. Asking if an FA was “nice” is subjective, but asking an EP or a CK if they were welcomed on board and thanked for their business is not. Good FAs will score well under this system. Bad FAs won’t.
If my memory serves me well, DL has been doing this for a while now… Best of good luck to the AA cabin crew!
Individuals in the service industry being graded on their service? Particularly when they are currently truly awful at it, at best? Sounds pretty logical to me!
I’m no fan of AA but this is not a good idea. Having worked in customer service for over 35 years (United), I admittedly have seen and worked next to my share of mediocre, lazy, lying, bad employees. However, there are also some very unreasonable passengers – expecting white glove service and — wiping at every turn. The worst seemed to be not the average yearly, family, vacation flyers but the snobs that snagged a F class upgrade (by luck) or premium cabin seat and griped when legitimate delays (weather, ATC, etc) happened. As well, the other end of the spectrum that wanted the airlines to treat them like their local welfare office and services did while they dressed and acted out every bit of sloppiness, rude and loudmouth (sometimes violent) behavior……always late for flights and expecting the airline to come to a “grinding halt” to accommodate them no matter what. At any rate this runs all across the spectrum of passengers. My fear (for AA employees) and soon to be copied by other airlines ???……. is that the passengers having all the ability to “rate” employees are ALWAYS wont to criticize, including a great deal of lying and/or embellishment (and not in a favorable way). Trust me, I’ve seen my share of liars, attempted scamming (“Oh, I know I booked today, not tomorrow”…..”let me have a supervisor!!”, etc). I have also been the victim of blatant lies when passengers didn’t get what they want. If it wasn’t for years and years of a good record and some 1/2 decent supervisors, I probably would have been hung out to dry. Once or twice I’ve really had to defend myself – backed up by coworkers thankfully that witnessed the bad behavior. So, I can’t see this as a good thing (being rated by passengers), especially since with each passing decade passenger behavior is looking to “get back” at us for any number of reasons.
The beatings will continue until morale improves. Bend over and assume the position!
Brilliant management.
Simple if you dont like it…find another job! A majority of flight attendants I run across are phoning it in. They could care less about doing their job. The sit down as soon as possible and stare at their phones. Or else the sit and congregate in the galley doing nothing but yapping. So let them step it up a little bit. Im an EXPLAT and maybe one in 10 thank me for it.
Perhaps AA employees should also develop a system to grade management.
I’m shocked — shocked — to learn a company’s employees might be judged on their job performance.