Mark your calendars. United flight attendants are planning a systemwide “day of action” on December 13th.
I’ve written quite a bit recently about the labor situation at United Airlines between flight attendants and management.
- United Airlines May Add “Satellite Bases” For FAs In Three Cities
- Is United Airlines Cheating Flight Attendants With “Long Sit” Policy?
- United Airlines Flight Attendants Protest Staffing Cuts, Warn Of Poor Service Onboard
The most contentious issue is the plan to reduce business class staffing by one FA on select international flights. That is the epicenter of the protest, as the AFA has argued:
Pre-plated food is no substitute for another flight attendant in the aisles.
But the day of protest will also address the “long sit” issue.
In hopes of reversing the staffing cuts and overnight layover policies, FAs will stage picket line protests at United’s hubs in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Newark.
In a more symbolic move, those white AFA pins currently worn by FAs will turn red.
The United Master Executive Council acted unanimously to turn our AFA pin red and to take our fight public because these management decisions affect not only us, but the traveling public as well.
That last sentence captures precisely why this issue is newsworthy. While passengers may not be thrown into the middle of this debate, they will certainly be made aware of it.
CONCLUSION
Pre-plating food and cutting staffing is not what an airline does if it wants to be the best in the world, at least from a service prospective. The fundamental problem, it seems to me, is that FAs feel their trust has been violated…once again. After a multi-year negotiation to seek a new unified FA agreement, many now feel that United is taking advantage of a small cause to do what it promised it would not. While United may have the contractual right to cut staffing, I hope this staffing cut will not end up costing the company more than it saves them.
image: United AFA
It would be easier to find sympathy for the FAs if they weren’t so categorically rude, disinterested, and downright hostile half the time on UA.
Not once on Delta in domestic F have I experienced the kind of flippant behavior that’s par for the course with UA.
If you don’t like you job, and clearly most of them don’t, then go find another one. This is how 95% of the rest of the world does it. Protesting and demanding stuff is all too common in political discourse these days, like petulant toddlers.
I feel as though the problem lies In the FA’s general indifference toward the job.
United needs to make changes by either letting bad staff go or create a culture like JetBlue and get FA’s who actually enjoy working.
As a flight attendant myself, I do see that sometimes other FAs respond to passengers poorly–and that happens on every airline, though perhaps more on some. Very few people report their pleasant to superior service on airline X, yet many report frivolities as if their own world was turned upside down by a ‘smart’ remark. United FAs are upset that in a time of great profits our profit sharing is decreasing, our staffing is not ideal for safety and service, and it’s due to get worse. There are a myriad of management- and shareholder-focused decisions that clearly leave out other important parties to success: passengers and employees.
“United Airlines Flight Attendants Protest Staffing Cuts, Warn Of Poor Service Onboard”
How will we be able to tell the “poor service” from what we normally get?
I’m from Hawaii and years ago United used to be top-notch one of the best in the world now they’re service absolutely sucks they are at the bottom of the barrel they do not care about the passengers nor do they care to help you. When you get up to the check-in desk that rude right off the bat you don’t even have to open up your mouth I absolutely cannot stand United Airlines.. I will pay more for a different airlines then fly United Airlines!! And please don’t blame it on the 911 change because that’s absolute bullshit for attitude!!!!!
Since the merger with Continental until October of this year FA’s operated under different job rules, they had separate schedules, separate aircrafts that they could work on. You know for the FA’s it’s seniority-based for schedule and vacation bidding. However, since post merger United started hiring 5 or 6 years ago, 80% of the new hires were placed on sub-CO part vs. About 20% to subUA part of operations. Then the management took a good portion of international flying from historically subUA west coast hubs LAX and SFO and moved it to subCO subsidiary. At that time many sub UA FA’s with 15-20 years seniority lost their international lines and went to either shitty domestic or even reserve while relatively new hires on sub CO could be flying to Shanghai and Sydney and Melbourne and Chendu and London and Munich and Tel Aviv and Paris from San Francisco and/or LAX. It trigerred two things: extreme commuting for FA’s and low moral. If you’ve been on LAX or SFO to IAH flight in the past few years you probably seen quite a few FA’s commuting. They are coming from their home in Houston to work flights from the west coast. These are legacy sub CO FAs with 10-15 years seniority where they could not hold international lines out of IAH. On another hand you have 15-20 years senior sub UA FA who went to reserve or AB rotation and don’t give a f*ck any more. Merging two big companies with different cultures and different work rules is a enormous challenge. And the management at United did not handle it right. They basically failed at that. And even now post-merger, management is still not addressing proper base staffing and basic other things that could improve morale, choosing instead to cut flight attendant staffing on international routes.
CONCLUSION: Before blaming flight attendants for what you perceive to be poor service, think about how they have been treated by their management.
You’re correct……goes for just about the whole company…..Pre-merger UA employees were involuntarily slung under the management of CO. Their (CO’s) mindset and way of doing things was entirely different, sub-par, dumbed-down, cheapened to the Can’tinental mentality…..just ask anyone of us who was pre-merger UAL customer service…..now it’s the flight attendants’ turn. Worse still UAL is now being led by AA’s reject – Scott Kirby – the new Jeff Smisek – his ideas are even worse as they race to compete with Spirit and Frontier.
CONTINENTAL FLIGHT ATTENDANS WERE ALWAYS RANKED AS ONE OF THE BEST IN THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY. . THE MERGER CHANGED EVERYTHING AND UNFORTUNATELY IT HAS NOT BEEN FOR THE BETTER. SO PLEASE DO NOT BLAME FLIGHT ATTENDANT. THE BLAME IS SQUARELY IN THE HANDS OF THE MANAGEMENT OF THE COMPANY.
The company is not United it is more like UNTIED! I am a firm believer that the culture starts from the top and the existing anx is a concious effort to divide and conquer. JD Power Award was awarded to Continental for many years because of a genuinely happy and healthy work enviornment. Being forced together with people that sacrificed everything to keep their company alive with nothing given back when things improved is a recipe for conflict. I would be mad and hostile also. During this merger the continued differnce in treatment was not even subtle when Sub UA and Sub CO were not given equal benifits post contract ratification causing more animosity. The past needs to be put behind us and we need to come together and truly unite for the benefit of all of us and stand up against the managment and the Union if they dont do right by us. Virgin and Alaska should be the olaybook as how to merge to companies and come out on the otherside with a cohesive crew. They are talking of saving money to be competitive, well how about selling those positive space seats for dead heading crew to increase revenue. Scheduling out of multiple bases for one flight has the potential to delay flights or causing the flights to go out short. Someone should do a study on the finacial and morale cost of poor scheduling. I am sure after some further investigation of UA scheduling policies monies could
be found which would allow us to keep proper staffing on all flights. If this is done maybe the JD Power Award could be in United’s future