While there are polices in place for when your flight attendant fails to show up for a flight, I wonder what happens when all calls and messages go unreturned. Are house calls made?
Missing Flight Attendant…What Is The Protocol?
The context of my question is a similar question posed on reddit by a United flyer:
I was on a flight yesterday from [Nashville] BNA to [Denver] DEN, which was delayed due to a missing flight attendant. They said they’d called her hotel and her cell, but she didn’t answer either and didn’t call back. They eventually pulled one from another flight, reducing the delay to just 30 minutes.
How common is this? Is there any chance it was a scheduling error and not her fault? As a genuinely concerned human, it’s tough not to worry about what happened to this person. Hopefully she’s ok.
It’s common enough that United (and every major carrier) has flight attendants scheduled on “reserve” each day at many of their stations across the USA, precisely for occurrences like this.
Flight attendants call in sick or take kin days sometimes with little notice…that’s true in any profession.
But this is a bit different. Here, the crew member was expected to report to duty. She did not call in sick. She simply no-showed. And the fact that she was in a hotel suggests he was not local and just got her work days mixed up.
And of course that is concerning…as we saw in the case of an American Airlines flight attendant last year who died in her room at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott hotel.
In that case, the flight attendant was supposed to have checked out two days earlier – why did no one from the hotel check her room sooner? Do rooms sit empty for two days? That incident reflected poorly on both the hotel and on American Airlines.
So what’s the policy here? Will United send a search party if the flight attendant continues not to answer her phone? Do colleagues on a work trip exchange numbers or have access to personal cell phone numbers in their internal systems or work-issued iPhones? Doesn’t the crew travel together to/from airports? Did anyone knock on her door before the crew bus left?
It’s always concerning when someone just seems to disappear. This isn’t like a Pakistan International Airlines flight in Toronto…
CONCLUSION
Passengers were told their flight was delayed because a crew member failed to check in or call in sick. While an alternate flight attendant was relatively quickly found, I’m genuinely curious what the protocol is for location the missing flight attendant. How long till an in-person check occurs?
It would be easy to locate the flight attendant in the photo ; she would be with me .
LOL! I was going to ask Matthew which airline is he flying that has that caliber of FA. Definitely not the US legacy airlines.
You can find many women like that on AI airlines, if that’s your thing…
AI? No, not my thing. I like the real deal.
I’m would buy stock in an airline with flight attendants like the photo! No need for frequent flyer plan.
No.
UPDATE: FA in question has been found waiting to interview with the multiverse’s #1 PREMIUM airline, Delta. Nothing to worry about, as she knows a good working environment when she sees it.
Had similar situation at DCA during Xmas season. Flight delayed 40+ minutes, no reason given. An FA appeared and stated to the Gate Agent in an elevated voice, “If I get on that jet, I’m stuck with it”. Just at this time, another FA broke thru the cluster of irritated “Gate Lice”, ran past the FA and GA and down the gateway. The GA chased the tardy FA and stated in irritated voice, “no swipe, no boarding, get back to the podium!” The Lice were amused.
Since I had 1st class, I made sure I was the first onboard. The tardy FA was in the back having a chat with other FAs and wasn’t aware the boarding process had started. Turns out the tardy FA was the #1 FA and has responsible for 1st Class.
Only on American Airlines!!
Dude, she hooked up with a guy and decided the $27 an hour wasn’t worth it.
Obviously wasn’t Aaron.
Damn, I must really live rent in your head…maybe you’re the one who wants to hook up with me, which is just so ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew on so many levels.
Wednesday is valentine’s day. Dave can’t stop thinking of you Aaron!
Well the dude does like “chocolate” on a stick.
@Dave
Ew, stop projecting on me that you and the guys you hook up with don’t practice proper hygiene, you weirdo.
@Maryland ew, gross!
Ok, freak. Another freak shot up a church yesterday. Yet you keep telling yourself it’s ok to change genders. Now go take all that anger out on your boy toy fairy’s ass and keep telling yourself you are normal as do it and that he really enjoys it. And buy the queen some new lipstick for Valentines Day.
Stop projecting your closeted desires onto me. No means no, you weirdo!
Just stop with the creepy AI images. Or at least use ones that don’t make flight attendants look like robot Barbie dolls.
I’m not about to go Gary on AI, but for a flight attendant story on a missing flight attendant I did not want to use a stock photo of a REAL flight attendant.
That’s got to be an Eastern European airline that pictured flight attendant works or….or it’s AI !
United Airlines does not share the phone numbers of employees with each other, they can be reached by Teams. Employees do, however, share their numbers with other FA’s they become friendly with. Not all the FA’s on a flight may have worked before together, so it is not unusual for them to only meet at the hotel lobby or airport gate. When staying on airport hotels, they would be given a shuttle time to take, but they are free to leave on earlier shuttles or even later if they feel they would still make it on-time to their report gate. Most FA’s have an unspoken code where they would not report late arriving FA’s unless it affects the departure time of the flight. They try to protect each other and you may not see an issue unless they fail to report to work. I have known of lots of issues with FA’s missing their rides, oversleeping or misunderstanding the time they need to report to the lobby or airport.
Very helpful comment. Thanks Juan.
FA not turning up at report could be a male. Would you make the same comment about his photo??? Matthew you should have shut down the photo comments. Lots of FA have used a hotel stay to commit suicide. Knowing it’s not their home or a family member would find them.
It was not uncommon in the 1990 for middle eastern female FA to not turn up at report time in Europe. It was a easy way of leavening your contract if you wear a European.
Do you really want a flight attendant around staring you down and nagging you about this and that?