As flight attendants at American Airlines continue to fight for a new contract, it appears that some are consciously engaging in “self-help” by deliberately denying pre-departure beverages to first class customers with the justification that they are insufficiently paid for their time.
Flight Attendants At American Airlines Skipping Pre-Departure Beverages In “Self-Help” Move
In the context of labor, self-help is a unilateral action by a party in a collective bargaining dispute to apply economic pressure to its collective bargaining counterpart as leverage in negotiations. For example, when mechanics deliberately take three times as long to fix planes or flight attendants, as is the case here, deliberately refuse to serve drinks onboard, the point is to disrupt operations
American Airlines and the union representing its flight attendants remained locked in a fierce negotiation for a new contract mediated by the federal National Mediation Board (NMB). While the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) has repeatedly sought to strike, the NMB has determined that the two sides are still not at an impasse.
But as contract negotiations drag on, some flight attendants seem to be taking matters into thier own hands. We’ve received multiple reports of flight attendants refusing to offer pre-departure beverages to first class guests onboard, but one passenger recently shared on Flyertalk of a rather blunt incident:
I’m on the ground right now about to leave on ORD-STL. I’m in 1B. We’re on time and will likely push early. Two FAs are chatting and one proudly declares, “I don’t do pre-departures any more because of the contract.” She went on to complain about an FA she worked with a few days earlier who did one, and she apparently didn’t like that.
I’ve suspected that FAs have been doing this lately, but it’s pretty amazing to hear them just outright declare it in front of pax. Interestingly neither of the FAs standing in the galley are wearing name tags. I assume that’s intentional too.
I know the FAs don’t care, and AA probably doesn’t care either, but that sure does make me mad. If I declared my unwillingness to do my job in front of customers, I’d certainly get fired.
I quite agree with that final statement. It is mind-boggling that a flight attendant can get away with not doing her job because she thinks she should be paid more to do it. That’s crazy and not how labor unions should work. Of course, the APFA has warned flight attendants not to engage in self-help, but this sort of toxic attitude is not unique to this one rogue flight attendant.
Let’s not forget that the lack of boarding pay is something that the union negotiated (for the benefit of senior flight attendants) and something that American Airlines flight attendants agreed to. I personally don’t thnk it makes much sense to give up boarding pay in exchange for more pay once the doors are closed, but this was the deal the union negotiated and flight attendants ratified, so it’s a bit much to argue that American Airlines is doing something wrong here…
On the contrary, American Airlines is offering boarding pay and offered flight attendants an immediate 17% during contract negotiations, though union negotiators declined (holding out of something better even though the raise would not have precluded a new contract).
CONCLUSION
Flight attendants at American Airlines are understandably anxious about a new contract and upset that one has not been agreed upon. But taking matters into their own hands by refusing to do to their job (serving drinks) is a step too far and such flight attendants have no business being flight attendants…
hat tip: PYOK
If you show up to work you’ve accepted the pay. How you perform is a reflection of your character.
Pay them for the time they’re working then.
Pay them according to the contract terms they agreed to. In exchange for their performing the duties they agreed to.
Why is it *always* AA when it comes to these customers-getting-screwed-over stories
After being Plat or Plat Pro with AA for 13 years, I status matched to DL last year and haven’t looked back. It’s so eye opening to fly on an airline where you don’t get the sense that most employees hate their company and their jobs.
Right…except that Delta itself has utter disdain for its elite members. Then trips over itself to screw them over time and time again (GPU usage, no access to SCs in Y internationally, C+ as an ‘upgrade’, and the list goes on and on). But enjoy that greener pasture.
31M after 5 years of Plat Pro @ AA i bailed for Alaska Air.
I finally am able to experience a consistent level of quality service within the contiguous 48 states i without forfeiting my OW benefits.
I learned that solid customer service at 30k ft is possible just not with the bottom of the barrel talent sourced by AA.
Did you mention it been over 5 years since the AA flight attendants had a pay raise or a contract. Some full time flight attendants receive food stamps while Robert Isom (AA CEO) received $31,000,000.00 income in 2023. How much longer can this continue?
Some less tenured FA’s qualify for food stamps. Such is a function of the seniority friendly pay scheme their union negotiated. Those impoverished FA’s hould take up their plight with Sara Nelson and her union goons.
No one working should be on food stamps period.
But, still the union agreed to it.
I agree 100%
Sarah Nelson is not affiliated with the APFA union.
Just because you’re in contract negotiations for 5 years doesn’t mean you don’t do your job, or provide the customer the services they’ve paid for. Pre-departure drinks as trivial as it is, is included in the service for passengers seated in first class. How hard is it for an FA to do their job and serve 12 or 16 passengers a drink?
It is easy to loose the trust of passengers, it’s hard as hell to win them back after they’ve abandoned AA for another airline. American Airlines already shot itself in the foot with Vasu Raja’s NDC debacle costing AA corporate clients while both DL and UA each reported a 14% increase in corporate clients. Now those corporate clients who did stay with AA through that NDC mess now are facing bitter FA’s refusing to do their job.
How much more do you think American Airlines passengers and corporate clients (the one’s AAis trying to win back) are going to put up with before they begin writing AA off for good? You voluntarily joined an airline that has a union representing you let the union do its job and represent you and you do your job which is to keep the customers safe and happy so they continue to come back to AA once their contract stuff has been resolved.
If isom gave 100% of his compensation to the flight attendants, ignoring 1. 3/4 of his compensation is stock options he can’t sell for years and 2. This ‘solution’ would benefit FAs and no one else at american, it would be a tiny fraction of the 17% no strings attached raise the union already turned down. So cry me a river about another strawman.
Wait, five years on, with five years more seniority, a flight attendant isn’t making more per hour and more in total than they did five years ago?
All these bitter FA’s are accomplishing is driving more of their customers over to Delta and United. There is only so much of this mess customers will take before they begin looking elsewhere for their travel needs. It’s a shame that FA’s like this are literally destroying American Airlines.
I think you can also blame management as Joe T stated this been going on for 5 years.
@Tony … +1 . Management is 100% the culprit .
Blame anyone who doesn’t do the job the accepted a contract for. If you take a waitressing job that pays 2.15 an hour at a small diner expect that you aren’t going to make the kind of money you would at a job that is in a fine dining restaurant. If part of your job is to provide drinks to first class during pre board then do it. How much management makes isn’t the issue. As a FA this is what you chose and you and your union ratified the contract. If you don’t live up to your end of the deal you certainly can’t expect management to live up to theirs. Additionally, driving customers away does not benefit the FAs in the long term. Who needs them if I can fly a different carrier with better service. Many of us complain with our wallets by taking our business elsewhere.
As I understand it, whether or not to provide PDB has always been at the FA’s discretion, particularly when the PDB service might slow boarding.
This FA can simply say he or she is prioritizing boarding. Instead, he or she decided to ventilate labor management issues in front of the customer. That is gratuitous and unprofessional.
What else does she NOT do?
“I don’t arm slides anymore.”
“I don’t extinguish fires anymore.”
“I don’t use AEDs anymore.”
One can argue the pettiness of pre-departure drinks, but it’s a big deal with frequent travellers. It’s also just part of the job. We all have aspects of our jobs we dislike.
The question I always want to ask is, “What did this do for her?” A petty rebellion?
Independent refusal to conduct her work duties will not get her a contract, better pay, or better work rules. It will just make passengers resentful.
Given the levels of service at the domestic airlines, we no longer fly any of them for our international trips. Just booked a trip to Seoul and Taiwan on an Asian airline because not only was the price less for business class, the levels of service are so much better than AA, UA, or even Delta.
@Edward … +1 . Wise move .
But did you survive though? Was it so hard to wait for that drink in the air? Cry me a River
I don’t blame the flight attendants they do in fact work for American Airlines
Right I give in to what Ben G and others have been saying
#BringInAlanJoyce
#LOCKTHEMOUT
Amateurs. The way to sabotage an airline is to serve visibly moldy food,as taught by Delta crew.
“Its been 5 years….”
Good…..and you deserve to go another 5 years given your laziness and lack of integrity.
I feel about as bad for AA flight attendants as I do for meter maids and DMV employees.
Don’t tell me how bad you have it when you treat us like shit.
Think inmates feel bad to the guards during contract negotiations? No. They don’t.
I hope you (and your union) overplay your hand and end up getting screwed.
Anger much?
It’s called work to rule. If the contract does not require the FA to bring you drinks, why should you get the benefit of something that they are not being paid to do?
When I hear of how many first class passengers complain about whether they got a pre-flight drink, I wonder… are THAT many frequent flyers alcoholics who can’t wait until 10,000 feet to get a scotch and soda.
Side note: From my experience it’s the “Where is my drink?” people who are the most self-entitled, arrogant peope on earth.
I love the apologists, anytime anyone asks for a decent level of service for which they have paid (not everyone in 1st is on an upgrade) someone has to call them entitled. Go ahead and encourage the race to the bottom.
That’s why paying for FOOD / Drink on an airplane is a waste of money. Too many things can go wrong, including an urgent run to the bathroom/lavatory.
I think that Airlines need to regulated again, that way it’s a level playing field, and the greyhound passengers go back to riding the bus. Bring the Luxury skies back again and the airlines profits too. I remember when airline stocks used to be beyond 200.00 a share…Those days are long gone!
But think how high the I inflation-adjusted fares were!
Yes, but you certainly flew with better people!
Agreed. But let’s also factor in that there are technological and efficiency improvements since then. Remember when we had to get paper tickets sent to us by fedex or picked up at the airport? You had to get a travel agent to buy tickets? Planes often didn’t take off full and we took it for granted there were lots of extra seats.
Quite frankly, the “adjusted” airfares came at the cost of lower overall wages (except for the CEO’s and executives, of course) and benefits as well as instability in the industry. The “golden era” of flight to me was in the 1990’s when smoking was banned (whew!), fares were cheap, FF programs were fantastic, and airport security was still efficient although I was asked if I had packed my own bag (the answer was always YES!) Airlines still went out of business sadly such as Braniff, TWA, and PanAm of course. Then in 9/11/2001, all went to heck (in many ways.)
I wish I could take Millennials and Zoomers in a DeLorean and back in time when things were actually still decent, not great, but decent.
The toxicity of Flight Attendants, Gate Agents, and Ticket Agents is driving away the desirable customers and leaving the “Group 9” types that frequently get into dust ups with front line employees. The lack of care and consideration for performing a duty is disgusting, regardless of negotiations. Flight Attendants accept the pay for expected duty every time they show up for work. Their refusal to perform these duties is unprofessional and they deserve the slow roll, low ball from management. These cry babies expect to be highly compensated for a job that requires very little education or technical expertise. If you don’t want to work, quit and go elsewhere. Selfish of them to poison the operation with this cancer and ruin it for the rest of the work force. The Flight Attendant position is a job, not a career to get rich by. Lazy Flight Attendants are spoiled with how easy the job is and want an unreasonable compensation to perform their frequent everyday tasks, which many are refusing to perform. In the rare case there is an emergency, most responsibilities are shifted to an on board medical trained passenger or MedAire. The 65 year old senior mama who refuses to service drinks or help passengers with baggage rarely ‘earn’ the compensation they claim to be owed. These frequent instances of self help are proof positive for how bad AAs inflight culture (and other senior union front line employees to be honest) has become, yet the Flight Attendants are all too happy to push credit cards on every leg. As a long time passengers, this toxic song and dance is repulsive.
I understand pay should increase as cost of living increases, but refusing to do your job and spewing a cancerous culture in the public eye is disgusting. They need to go, yesterday.
I’d be curious to know whether this was mainline AA or if it was one of the regionals.
Mainline
I was on a recent AA flight from CLT to MCI in 1st. Not only no pre-departure service but 1 drink served during the flight. FA sat on her phone or chatting with other FA for the rest of the flight.
Share the full name, flight number and date of flight. I’ll make sure action is taken on him/her.
I guess serving soda- beverages has nothing to do with “safety,”
So, we all agree that FAs (and everyone else) should actually perform all of the functions required by the job they agreed to do. Further, AA FAs chose to become FAs and chose to become FAs at American, no one was coerced or indentured into service with the airline.
That all said, I have often wondered about the logic, logistics and need for serving drinks during the boarding stage. It may make sense and be a nice benny when you actually turn left into a premium cabin after boarding but most flights have everyone board through the front and the whole drink service schtick is just silly – how essential is that tepid glass of bad bubbles or warm OJ? – and inconvenient – if “on time departure” is such a big deal, let the poor folks in the back get to their seats quickly and not have to stop and wait for Peter Premium to get his plastic cup.
I’ll never condone the FA’s behavior or blatant contempt for the passengers under his/her care demonstrated in the story above, but maybe the whole drink thing should be revisited, see scrapped, as a waste of time.
The service in general over the past couple of years has been in a significant decline. There really is no point in being Executive Platinum any longer. Which just feels weird given the 15 years I’ve done it.
I agree with the flight attendants, why should they do unpaid work? Robert Islom should step down as CEO, he’s a sub-par CEO to say the least! I fly American Airlines often and most of the crew are professional and I would expect them to be stand offish at times given the current climate at American! Islom, give these.men and women the contract they deserve. And for the people that write these articles, which at times are not the whole truth, get better fact, big deal if a first class passenger didn’t get a cocktail while sat at on a delayed 3 hr flight that the flight attendants are trying to board up and get out! Typical over privileged Americans, complaining about NOTHING!
5 yrs with out a raise? And Union employees are not jumping all over their Union Executives? Clearly American FA Union careless about Membership. A strong union is every union member working together for change. It cant be all that bad at American Airlines. Stop talking about striking. Just do it. Westjet mechanics shutdown the airline for 48hrs. This was 650 people standing together.
Just curious of this psgr was on a mainline AA flight? First class does not have a seat 1B on mainline AA aircraft…
Mainline DO have 1B, regionals only have 1A. Also, the OP mentioned about their contact in talk, which is mainline.
How long does it take to go to sky waitress school?
Sadly, this has become the typical American attitude with little to n9 pride in their work. Not happy with your contract? Fight with your union and don’t take it on the pax.
” ..And you (we) are all just prisoners here to our own delight..”.(lyrics from Hotel California…)
Just another issue that detracts an airline from becoming truly “World Class”.
Finally a good time to not be able to afford to fly first class. C’mon people, they are glorified restaurant servers in an aircraft. They used to have to have skills and be a nurse. Now anyone can do it. No skills needed. Don’t like it, go get skills doing something else. It’s not brain surgery.
They really should be banned from using the word Professional in anything related to the FAs and their union.
I love it! Good for them. Keep
Fighting AA
AA flight attendant here: I determined that most people are immature pieces of sh*t. Like 85% of the people feel so entitled it’s actually crazy (my own napkin stats). Had so many people think they can just sit in a pod business seat just because it was empty, had people go in the back galley (where we store all the drinks, food etc) to serve themselves a drink by opening and closing random compartment like they were at someone’s house for the first time. Had people get mad at me for being delayed because of either weather or mechanical. Majority of people are f*cking babies.