I’m pretty sure AA uses the same profit sharing formula Delta uses with their FAs… The difference is that AA is struggling from a profitability standpoint and increasing labor costs will only worsen AA’s profitability (lack there of).
They just gave the pilots over $6 Billion in wage increases for the next 4 years. Then AA comes back and says that they can't afford $350 million for FA wages. What's wrong with this picture.
Inflation has eaten away at their wages just like it has everyone else's. No raises since 2019, but inflation has been 3% to 4% per year or even more.
There is nothing wrong with this picture… It’s a reality of business: Limited resources and limited capital. AA is currently barely breaking even on their operation and doesn’t have another $350M laying around after giving $6B to the pilots. What’s difficult about that concept?
Travel benefits usually. Two friends are flight attendants. Both live at home with mom, but get to travel the world for very little while they’re young.
Ok so they took the job for travel benefits despite it not being a “livable wage”. That is the CHOICE they made… Cry me a river. That would be like me complaining that even though I can afford to travel the world on my own dime I can’t because my job is so demanding I don’t have the time… and then arguing that my employer should just let me work less, producing less output, to enable my leisure travel desires.
Not how the world works
It’s an important job. They should be given a livable wage. Benefits are perks of most jobs, but I’m fairly certain without the benefits of your job, you would still want a living wage.
I hope I never have you on my flight. Imagine getting mad at flight attendants for a livable wage. We get paid differently and the rate we are currently getting paid was negotiated in 2014.
The job has changed drastically with 9/11, COVID, inflation, and in general people travel more. Used to be you could make good money and easily use your benefits to get on any flight. Even 2013-2015 money was good and people weren’t crazy.
But things changed really quickly. Some people still think of it as PanAm days of partying and drinking on your layover because you worked a 10 hour flight with 100 people. But just since COVID travel records have been broken every year. We’ve all seen the videos of passengers acting out. It takes time for the culture to change of realizing it’s not worth. Application numbers are already down at every airline. They need to pay a living wage or the airlines will soon have a larger problem on their hand.
Nope. I do have a house though. Ha
Unfortunately Home airport to small market back home for a couple days. Back to a small market is always a connection.
August and all the lost vacation travel rev would hurt. Plus it puts all the back to school movement too at risk. Sept/Oct play well for the election but financially, it’s all the months around that time frame that make all the money. November begins holiday travel and I don’t think the feds would allow that to go for too long.
FA union can't afford to do a full strike for more than 30 days because their members are around $10 mil behind on dues. They'd likely do a soft strike where they cause disruption.
Unions don’t need a full fund anymore to do a full strike. If they strike en masse enough and strategically, they can cause AA to basically be forced to layoff the rest to qualify for unemployment insurance. Autoworkers have gotten really smart with this. This can stretch the fund out. Given some will be on rest time, then the rest out of position, you probably only need 40% to strike for a few days to effectively cascade a full strike.
$10 million won’t matter if others start to kick in for support. They technically are not for profits so can effectively take donations as well.
Personally not a fan of unions but given what Delta and United were able to get done, I don’t mind them punishing Isom for being a moron and the mortal mistakes Vasu made. Isom let Vasu destroy the carrier. He needs to own up to it and honestly be replaced.
I feel like American’s value has gone down ever since Isom took over. Is there anyway he can get replaced in the near future? American could use a change in direction for where they’re headed.
Going to be on the stockholders. Based on how the board just rewarded him with a comp package, it’s going to be difficult.
The larger the company, the larger the challenges. I get it, but at some point he has to be held accountable for picking the wrong people. Vasu was an idiotic decision from Day 1. Isom’s only as valuable as the people he surrounds himself with. It’s starting to show he can’t build a strong enough executive staff for the behemouth that AA is.
Which is actually illegal and would make the airlines and federal government both mad at them. They could end up worse off. How many FAs would cross the lines and keep flying as they need the $$. The FA union strike fund is very small.
First the NMB has to release both groups into a 30 day cooling off period. That hasn’t happened yet and they can take as long as they’d like to grant it. If they were to release next week, the clock starts for 30 days of “cooling off” where both parties can attempt negotiations. Once the 30 days are up the strike can begin.
Correct, no strike will happen in June. But storms have been a constant disruption to service right now. AA has had mass cancellations and delays all week and it doesn’t show signs of improving for a few more days.
That’s going to work in favor of the Flight Attendants. AA can’t afford a catastrophic event like a Flight Attendant strike on top of their horrible year…
Ughh my mom’s supposed to be flying through dfw today…. After having to delay from yesterday….. and I fly from dca Thursday night. Hopefully Mother Nature will be kind!
So thankful for that 😆 I won’t be flying American for the rest of my life hopefully starting tomorrow. (Assuming my employers doesn’t force me to at some point)
Yep, and I don't see the NMB releasing them into the 30 day cooling off period until June 8-9 at the earliest, to avoid a strike starting on July 4 weekend.
Nowhere does this mention that they’ve actually been released to strike which in itself would carry a 30 day cooling-off period. There is pretty much no new information here.
Honestly AA corporate is dog shit. My flight was delayed for a day because they can’t figure out logistics. The board of directors needs to clean house top down until they get to the individual contributor level. Then they need to hire an outside firm to evaluate their staff and bring in some logistics folks from companies that actually understand how to move goods/services. I’m still not convinced the people at American Airlines have a high school education In their corporate offices.
Again though, FAs and the customer service people at the desk did their job well. One actually went above and beyond and got me a room/vouchers to eat with thanks to delaying me a day on what should have been a couple hour flight.
They can, and that it's an election year makes it interesting. Alienate business travelers, or appear anti-union.
(Don't turn this into a political sub thread)
So it's not clear what will happen.
Calm down. I don’t want the feds to do that and I think it was wrong that the feds did it last year to the railroads. No way they let them strike in an election year if they have the option.
Supposedly after the admin forced the railway employees back to work Biden took some time and got the workers a better deal anyway, so it wasn't as terribly bad as it could have been.
Of course, this very question is the threat that FAs hope will put pressure on management before the cooling-off period begins. At the same time, according to a couple of FAs I was talking to, they of course would prefer that people don’t cancel their plans or switch to another airline. Their interests as AA employees are aligned with AA doing well.
I should also note that the current best practices speculated in the media is not a complete strike across all flights, but rather something known by a similar union as CHAOS (create havoc across our system) — by selectively and unpredictably striking a relatively small number of flights without advance notice — which allows most employees to remain on the job and earning a living but cost management a disproportionate amount of effort to keep things running.
I understand your sentiment, and I am not a lawyer. It turns out that as long as it is a legal strike, under federal law you cannot be fired for participating in a protected labor action under the Railway Labor Act. Alaska suspended and threatened to terminate anyone who walked off, but was forced by court order to reinstate them with back pay.
I think they are making their point... I am in DFW trying to get home. Multiple flights have been canceled, and I am in line trying to get on standby for tomorrow. A flight attendant walked by and said, "Oh, so sorry in you such a long line." Smiling as she walked by. A living wage is a living lifestyle. People shouldn't have to strike to get better conditions.
If it helps—I got screwed by Dallas too BUT didn’t have to wait in line because I called AA’s 800 number to reschedule my flight: 800-843-3447.
The phone reps pick up fast and will work with you to iron out a new flight schedule. Much, much quicker and easier than waiting in line.
(The only downside is if you get cut off because of a poor signal, you can’t reconnect with the same rep again.)
Hope you will get home soon!
I called that number Wednesday morning when my 12:40 flight to DFW got delayed until 4 guaranteeing I'd miss my connection and it told me there was a "5 1/2 - 8hr wait"
I'm never flying American again. I know shit was rough but we went to the airport and got rebooked (on alaska) and the person at the counter didn't even try to get us similar seats to the ones we had paid for nor did they even try to get us seated together. I know this because I was easily able to get 2 seats next to each other on the app. They told us the delay was because a flight attendant timed out.
I’m conflicted because while AA management is truly awful (like MBA study levels of incompetence), none of these posts or comments ever tell the full story of just how many very decent offers the APFA has turned down. Flight attendants could have been paid much better for years now but the union has held steady in demanding an industry-leading contract for an airline that is very far from industry leading in profitability.
It’s because we want retro pay for all the years the company stalled for a new contract. They stole money from us and gave it to their shareholders and as bonuses to their executives. We’re not getting to settle for anything less.
Apparently the holdup is with retro pay. The union wants retro pay for the past 4 years and AA is unwilling to do that. The FAs and union say they aren't going to agree to a contract without retro pay. So here we are.
Is an 11% raise (which is less than a cost of living adjustment, by the way) very decent? Doesn’t sound like it to me.
Edit: downvote me all you want, but FAs aren’t asking to get rich. No one expects to make six figures being a flight attendant. They’re asking for a living wage. People who work full time jobs shouldn’t have to live off of food stamps and live in their cars in the employee parking lot at the airport, especially when their ceo is taking home more money than the company profited. That’s corporate greed flat out. FAs deserve a raise and a cost of living adjustment.
My son was flying to Chatanooga yesterday from San Antonio and his flight was canceled. Got rescheduled today. He is at DFW now on a layover and his next segment got canceled. He said American flights are getting canceled all over the place.
This is clearly a staffing situation. American is the only airline with huge cancellations today. One look at Flightaware.com and its blatantly an American Airlines operational situation.
The staffing is due to the weather. During irrops, all of the reserves at base get used up. When they run out of reserve flight attendants, they have to fly in reserve flight attendants from other bases.
Our American flight got delayed a lot, we were told it was because a flight attendant timed out, and we were talking to a TSA agent that told us American has been having this happen a ton the last few weeks. Can't exactly confirm it's a staffing thing but I did hear it from someone who probably regularly hears about it.
I don't know what's happening. He just said he heard about it being strike related, which seemed odd to me when I googled and found nothing about it starting. My brother is in Dallas and told me he isn't seeing weather problems currently even though there definitely were some earlier. But maybe just not his area? Who knows?
I’m holding a conference in DC and a huge portion of my attendees who were scheduled to fly American had their flights cancelled this morning. Just American. All the others on other airlines are just fine. No other delays or cancellations. Clearly this is a staffing situation
It’s clearly NOT a staffing issue. AA’s largest hub and base of operations is in Dallas which had extreme weather this past week. Massive storms, huge hail, tornadoes and still portions of the surrounding city without power. This creates a system wide issue for AA. If Atlanta had been hit with the same weather it would be Delta with these issues. Weather is causing planes to not make to to next outbound flights, crews are not able to get to next flights or they are timing out. It sucks and I had two flights affected this week and the staff was able to get me rebooked within minutes (having status matters). The pending strike had zero effect this week and will not until at least July or August. Wanna be pissed off be mad at Mother Nature
This weather is happening about every other day if not every day so the system has no time to reset. Flights these days are always very full leaving no room for those who had flights cancelled and AA cannot just add an extra flight(s) on demand.
Should probably post the rest of that which goes on to say there will probably be more negotiations over the next two weeks, then the NMB has to make a decision on releasing from mediation. Then the 30 day clock starts before a strike could occur.
Are FAs with other carriers affiliated? I have worked in represented hospitals and unaffiliated hospitals, and as a good employee have never found professional representation to be especially useful. The non-union facilities paid wages absolutely in line with the union shops and the same could be said for the benefit packages offered. I found the latitude to switch shifts with others (creative staffing)and the ability to secure time PTO based on rotation vs absolute hour for hour seniority to be refreshing. I just wonder if the same would apply to AA FAs vs their counterparts?
Great we already have to deal with weather and mechanical delays and now this? So you’re going to delay the people you say you “care so much about”. And you wonder why the flying public is confrontational and pissed off. Be angry at your union for doing a crappy job in negotiations. Thought y’all are in the customer service business. This doesn’t seem very customer service by delaying us that need to get to sales meetings and trade shows.
As an American employee, I have been with the company for 3 years, and people at McDonald's make more than me.. Kinda hard when they give you the flight benefits, but you can't afford to go anywhere, and you don't get first class anymore.
The irony is that the flight attendants created this issue decades ago by unionizing. From an emotionally based standpoint we can all agree that this day in age it’s wrong to be discriminated on based on age and whatnot like the environment from years past but from a logical standpoint, what the flight attendant unions have created is a position where literally anyone, even you scrolling through Reddit, can have zero experience and no other background can apply and get hired to become a flight attendant. Having a position where every adult human on the planet is qualified to perform drastically shifts the supply and demand model so companies like AA know that when someone gets tired of the pay and benefits and quits they have 1000 more to fill the spot. Remove the union protection, arguably federal laws that promote this too and go back to the model of the 1960’s of height, weight and age requirements and reduce the amount of eligible applicants and watch the wages and benefits skyrocket.
Without unions, management could fire flight attendants for the smallest things. Delta not having a union is what caused this issue, they hold every other airline back.
Well no corporation should have to rule by fear but with the fear of being fired for anything as you stated I’m sure the quality of service would improve and then also with better service the potential for more profit and then better wages and benefits. If I know I can sit on my butt with earbuds in and not do my job because it’s nearly impossible to get fired I’d do it too. See the issue?
That’s hilarious you think the company would use the higher profit they get on the people who our CEO has referred to as cheap labor. AA had record size profit and we had the worst profit share out of any company. Unions are not the issue, it’s corporate greed and the RLA.
Then reference my first post and make yourselves more marketable. Make it harder to become/be a flight attendant. Provide better service than what I see when I ride on AA compared to Delta and United. Don’t forget a company can’t give you money if they don’t have money. Or they can and if they go under then you’ve just bitten the hand that feeds. It sounds like the AA flight attendant group needs to self reflect on their quality/quality of service before anything is going to change. Clearly the company agrees with what I’m saying because that’s what their actions are saying…
If the company wants better quality of service from us, they need to pay us the wage we deserve. Someone not involved in the aviation industry shouldn’t be talking. Don’t be a bootlicker.
Which is ironic because usually the worst service comes from the mamas who have like 30yr seniority and are well compensated. Fly to Tokyo on JAL and then AA and see if you notice a difference in service provided.
Good AA is horrible. Their tech, their people, and their service complete crap.
Got bumped off a flight because a stewardess didnt want to sit in a jump seat. So she took mine. Now on a flight 6 hours later than original at DFW. Just because a hour flight was too much for a worthless idiot to do their job for a hour....
AA bumped you buddy, not the employee. The only reason this happened is because AA had to get their employee to cover a flight somewhere and you’re probably the lowest paid ticket on the plane.
Nah originally they cancelled my trip because I missed a flight in their system. What really happened was my flight was cancelled Tuesday I got on a different one. Their system showed I missed my first flight instead of updating my trip to new flight they cancelled my return tickets. I had main cabin plus.
I get to airport when I head home on Saturday and find out my confirm code has no trip and it was cancelled.
They sorted it out got me on a flight home, but then the stewardess took my seat. She had a choice to use the jump seat and not bump me off. She said no I want a seat.
The gate agent looks at me in disgust and says sorry she has that right.
And I’m going to tell you why she said no:
If you’re not aware of the flight attendant going through contract negotiations and the company not giving them a pay raise, they’re also being stranded away from home on hold for hours waiting for flights home or hotels, and being dragged by the company. That “stewardess” has a contract agreement that gives her a confirmed seat and them offering her a jump seat is a violation of her contractual right to fly home comfortably be sitting in a JS. I’m not saying anyone’s reason to get home is more important than someone else’s, but the very person you’re pointing fingers at isn’t the right one. She did the right thing by denying a JS, and that gate agent that gave you a look of disgust…they’re wrong for doing that because they know damn well why she said no. I hope this gets across, because I’m sick of seeing flight attendants getting the “dirty looks” for corporates mistakes on your end. Hope you made it to your destination.
Hold strong AA. Break that union. There are plenty of sky waiters to be found on the market. Maybe we'll get FAs that actually provide customer service instead of just being grouchy working their contract. Delta sets a decent model in the US but the ME3 are so far ahead because it's not just seniority that matters.
The ME3 recruit from all over the world - they particularly love hiring South Africans. How many foreign hire FAs do you see flying on US Big 3 airlines.
Good for them. American has treated them like shit for decades.
I’m pretty sure AA uses the same profit sharing formula Delta uses with their FAs… The difference is that AA is struggling from a profitability standpoint and increasing labor costs will only worsen AA’s profitability (lack there of).
They don’t use the same formula, only Pilots and Mechanics recently got that Delta formula on their contracts.
They just gave the pilots over $6 Billion in wage increases for the next 4 years. Then AA comes back and says that they can't afford $350 million for FA wages. What's wrong with this picture. Inflation has eaten away at their wages just like it has everyone else's. No raises since 2019, but inflation has been 3% to 4% per year or even more.
There is nothing wrong with this picture… It’s a reality of business: Limited resources and limited capital. AA is currently barely breaking even on their operation and doesn’t have another $350M laying around after giving $6B to the pilots. What’s difficult about that concept?
Claw back some money from pilot 350m from six million problem solved. Now pay me that ceo monies.
Because the pilots would totally agree to that…
The bidenflation was like 10% in 21
“Giving our workers a living wage is going to hurt the shareholders! Help us!”
Then why does anyone take the job?
I think [this](https://reddit.com/r/flightattendants/comments/c4ofld/the_reality_of_being_a_flight_attendant/es2k51f/) comment sums it up well.
Great read too. Thanks for pulling that in!
Agreed
Travel benefits usually. Two friends are flight attendants. Both live at home with mom, but get to travel the world for very little while they’re young.
Ok so they took the job for travel benefits despite it not being a “livable wage”. That is the CHOICE they made… Cry me a river. That would be like me complaining that even though I can afford to travel the world on my own dime I can’t because my job is so demanding I don’t have the time… and then arguing that my employer should just let me work less, producing less output, to enable my leisure travel desires. Not how the world works
It’s an important job. They should be given a livable wage. Benefits are perks of most jobs, but I’m fairly certain without the benefits of your job, you would still want a living wage.
I would never accept a job that doesn’t provide me a “livable wage” regardless of the other benefits…
I hope I never have you on my flight. Imagine getting mad at flight attendants for a livable wage. We get paid differently and the rate we are currently getting paid was negotiated in 2014.
Sounds like FAs are aware of what they are signing up for.
The job has changed drastically with 9/11, COVID, inflation, and in general people travel more. Used to be you could make good money and easily use your benefits to get on any flight. Even 2013-2015 money was good and people weren’t crazy. But things changed really quickly. Some people still think of it as PanAm days of partying and drinking on your layover because you worked a 10 hour flight with 100 people. But just since COVID travel records have been broken every year. We’ve all seen the videos of passengers acting out. It takes time for the culture to change of realizing it’s not worth. Application numbers are already down at every airline. They need to pay a living wage or the airlines will soon have a larger problem on their hand.
Delta and United got around 10% and AA gets 1.1%. The rest went to the CEO
AA FA got 1.1%... delta got something over 9%
For Sure
No, AA does not use the same profit sharing formula as Delta.
Good for them. Bad for me. (8 AA legs a week)
lemme guess...two sites a week with a connection between them? and sales?
You got it. 2 hospitals a week. Home to break up travel time for my fam. Sales.
brutal schedule. hopefully your travels dont touch dfw this summer!
It’s not terribly. 2ish nights a week in a hotel. Yea DFW was brutal this last few weeks.
Do you have a home? I'm going to be going 4 segments a week later this summer and I'm trying to figure out when I'll actually work or be at home
Nope. I do have a house though. Ha Unfortunately Home airport to small market back home for a couple days. Back to a small market is always a connection.
I avg about 4 a week. Typically a layover in DFW or PHX. Coming out of California.
I mean American has treated them like shit for ages, They should do it.
Been taking bets that they’ll protest September/October. Anything sooner, it’ll get veto’d
August and all the lost vacation travel rev would hurt. Plus it puts all the back to school movement too at risk. Sept/Oct play well for the election but financially, it’s all the months around that time frame that make all the money. November begins holiday travel and I don’t think the feds would allow that to go for too long.
FA union can't afford to do a full strike for more than 30 days because their members are around $10 mil behind on dues. They'd likely do a soft strike where they cause disruption.
Unions don’t need a full fund anymore to do a full strike. If they strike en masse enough and strategically, they can cause AA to basically be forced to layoff the rest to qualify for unemployment insurance. Autoworkers have gotten really smart with this. This can stretch the fund out. Given some will be on rest time, then the rest out of position, you probably only need 40% to strike for a few days to effectively cascade a full strike. $10 million won’t matter if others start to kick in for support. They technically are not for profits so can effectively take donations as well. Personally not a fan of unions but given what Delta and United were able to get done, I don’t mind them punishing Isom for being a moron and the mortal mistakes Vasu made. Isom let Vasu destroy the carrier. He needs to own up to it and honestly be replaced.
I feel like American’s value has gone down ever since Isom took over. Is there anyway he can get replaced in the near future? American could use a change in direction for where they’re headed.
Going to be on the stockholders. Based on how the board just rewarded him with a comp package, it’s going to be difficult. The larger the company, the larger the challenges. I get it, but at some point he has to be held accountable for picking the wrong people. Vasu was an idiotic decision from Day 1. Isom’s only as valuable as the people he surrounds himself with. It’s starting to show he can’t build a strong enough executive staff for the behemouth that AA is.
That’s unfortunate
Preach
[удалено]
Yeah I was talking about this chaos system that's meant to cause disruptions.
Which is actually illegal and would make the airlines and federal government both mad at them. They could end up worse off. How many FAs would cross the lines and keep flying as they need the $$. The FA union strike fund is very small.
How early can they go on strike?
The absolute earliest would be the first half of July
That seems late. Why such a long period between negotiations and striking?
Railway labor act... they have to declare a 30 day cooling off period before a strike can happen.
Thank you!
First the NMB has to release both groups into a 30 day cooling off period. That hasn’t happened yet and they can take as long as they’d like to grant it. If they were to release next week, the clock starts for 30 days of “cooling off” where both parties can attempt negotiations. Once the 30 days are up the strike can begin.
Does this mean that for June, this won’t be an issue for flyers? It wouldn’t impact them?
Correct, no strike will happen in June. But storms have been a constant disruption to service right now. AA has had mass cancellations and delays all week and it doesn’t show signs of improving for a few more days.
Thank you so much for the clarification. I’m flying to DFW end of June and I’m hoping AA stabilizes by then
me too
Where are you flying from?
cid going to okc to see my dad
I hope everything goes well for you!!
That’s going to work in favor of the Flight Attendants. AA can’t afford a catastrophic event like a Flight Attendant strike on top of their horrible year…
Ughh my mom’s supposed to be flying through dfw today…. After having to delay from yesterday….. and I fly from dca Thursday night. Hopefully Mother Nature will be kind!
🙏🙏🙏
Are you flying in June?
yes :)
Do you mind me asking from where to where?
US to London
Good luck! I hope it goes well!!
Thank you!!!
Thank goodness. Flying to Cancun in 10 days. I know, selfish.
I understand, it sucks for everyone involved.
Same here -- flying to California for a week.
So thankful for that 😆 I won’t be flying American for the rest of my life hopefully starting tomorrow. (Assuming my employers doesn’t force me to at some point)
30 days after they’ve been released by the NEB. That has not happened *yet*.
Yep, and I don't see the NMB releasing them into the 30 day cooling off period until June 8-9 at the earliest, to avoid a strike starting on July 4 weekend.
Nowhere does this mention that they’ve actually been released to strike which in itself would carry a 30 day cooling-off period. There is pretty much no new information here.
I love the FAs far more than I love AA corporate. We got your back yall.
Honestly AA corporate is dog shit. My flight was delayed for a day because they can’t figure out logistics. The board of directors needs to clean house top down until they get to the individual contributor level. Then they need to hire an outside firm to evaluate their staff and bring in some logistics folks from companies that actually understand how to move goods/services. I’m still not convinced the people at American Airlines have a high school education In their corporate offices. Again though, FAs and the customer service people at the desk did their job well. One actually went above and beyond and got me a room/vouchers to eat with thanks to delaying me a day on what should have been a couple hour flight.
I support the FAs and hope they get a better contract.
AA CSA/FA’s/Pilots/Ground Crew > Every bad person in history > AA Management
Can the feds force them back to work like they do to railroads?
They could, but are you that human?
They can, and that it's an election year makes it interesting. Alienate business travelers, or appear anti-union. (Don't turn this into a political sub thread) So it's not clear what will happen.
Calm down. I don’t want the feds to do that and I think it was wrong that the feds did it last year to the railroads. No way they let them strike in an election year if they have the option.
Seems hard to believe that this administration would do that. Especially in an election year.
People said the same thing in the fall. Nothing surprises me anymore.
Supposedly after the admin forced the railway employees back to work Biden took some time and got the workers a better deal anyway, so it wasn't as terribly bad as it could have been.
Have to agree with that!
Does this mean I should consider different travel arrangements for my flight in late July ……..
Of course, this very question is the threat that FAs hope will put pressure on management before the cooling-off period begins. At the same time, according to a couple of FAs I was talking to, they of course would prefer that people don’t cancel their plans or switch to another airline. Their interests as AA employees are aligned with AA doing well. I should also note that the current best practices speculated in the media is not a complete strike across all flights, but rather something known by a similar union as CHAOS (create havoc across our system) — by selectively and unpredictably striking a relatively small number of flights without advance notice — which allows most employees to remain on the job and earning a living but cost management a disproportionate amount of effort to keep things running.
And those who don’t show up for work should be terminated for cause.
I understand your sentiment, and I am not a lawyer. It turns out that as long as it is a legal strike, under federal law you cannot be fired for participating in a protected labor action under the Railway Labor Act. Alaska suspended and threatened to terminate anyone who walked off, but was forced by court order to reinstate them with back pay.
Yeah I know that… Just don’t agree with it
$27,315 - the starting salary for flight attendants.
Which they all knew when they freely took the job.
I think they are making their point... I am in DFW trying to get home. Multiple flights have been canceled, and I am in line trying to get on standby for tomorrow. A flight attendant walked by and said, "Oh, so sorry in you such a long line." Smiling as she walked by. A living wage is a living lifestyle. People shouldn't have to strike to get better conditions.
If it helps—I got screwed by Dallas too BUT didn’t have to wait in line because I called AA’s 800 number to reschedule my flight: 800-843-3447. The phone reps pick up fast and will work with you to iron out a new flight schedule. Much, much quicker and easier than waiting in line. (The only downside is if you get cut off because of a poor signal, you can’t reconnect with the same rep again.) Hope you will get home soon!
I called that number Wednesday morning when my 12:40 flight to DFW got delayed until 4 guaranteeing I'd miss my connection and it told me there was a "5 1/2 - 8hr wait" I'm never flying American again. I know shit was rough but we went to the airport and got rebooked (on alaska) and the person at the counter didn't even try to get us similar seats to the ones we had paid for nor did they even try to get us seated together. I know this because I was easily able to get 2 seats next to each other on the app. They told us the delay was because a flight attendant timed out.
I’m conflicted because while AA management is truly awful (like MBA study levels of incompetence), none of these posts or comments ever tell the full story of just how many very decent offers the APFA has turned down. Flight attendants could have been paid much better for years now but the union has held steady in demanding an industry-leading contract for an airline that is very far from industry leading in profitability.
It’s because we want retro pay for all the years the company stalled for a new contract. They stole money from us and gave it to their shareholders and as bonuses to their executives. We’re not getting to settle for anything less.
Apparently the holdup is with retro pay. The union wants retro pay for the past 4 years and AA is unwilling to do that. The FAs and union say they aren't going to agree to a contract without retro pay. So here we are.
Is an 11% raise (which is less than a cost of living adjustment, by the way) very decent? Doesn’t sound like it to me. Edit: downvote me all you want, but FAs aren’t asking to get rich. No one expects to make six figures being a flight attendant. They’re asking for a living wage. People who work full time jobs shouldn’t have to live off of food stamps and live in their cars in the employee parking lot at the airport, especially when their ceo is taking home more money than the company profited. That’s corporate greed flat out. FAs deserve a raise and a cost of living adjustment.
Sure, it won't be fun, but it needs to happen. AA conceded to the pilots. Time to pay the piper for the FAs.
My son was flying to Chatanooga yesterday from San Antonio and his flight was canceled. Got rescheduled today. He is at DFW now on a layover and his next segment got canceled. He said American flights are getting canceled all over the place.
That definitely isn't because of a strike that can't happen until more than 30 days from now. Have a look at the weather.
This is clearly a staffing situation. American is the only airline with huge cancellations today. One look at Flightaware.com and its blatantly an American Airlines operational situation.
Definitely, but it's not caused by a strike that isn't happening yet.
The staffing is due to the weather. During irrops, all of the reserves at base get used up. When they run out of reserve flight attendants, they have to fly in reserve flight attendants from other bases.
Our American flight got delayed a lot, we were told it was because a flight attendant timed out, and we were talking to a TSA agent that told us American has been having this happen a ton the last few weeks. Can't exactly confirm it's a staffing thing but I did hear it from someone who probably regularly hears about it.
I don't know what's happening. He just said he heard about it being strike related, which seemed odd to me when I googled and found nothing about it starting. My brother is in Dallas and told me he isn't seeing weather problems currently even though there definitely were some earlier. But maybe just not his area? Who knows?
I’m holding a conference in DC and a huge portion of my attendees who were scheduled to fly American had their flights cancelled this morning. Just American. All the others on other airlines are just fine. No other delays or cancellations. Clearly this is a staffing situation
It’s clearly NOT a staffing issue. AA’s largest hub and base of operations is in Dallas which had extreme weather this past week. Massive storms, huge hail, tornadoes and still portions of the surrounding city without power. This creates a system wide issue for AA. If Atlanta had been hit with the same weather it would be Delta with these issues. Weather is causing planes to not make to to next outbound flights, crews are not able to get to next flights or they are timing out. It sucks and I had two flights affected this week and the staff was able to get me rebooked within minutes (having status matters). The pending strike had zero effect this week and will not until at least July or August. Wanna be pissed off be mad at Mother Nature
This weather is happening about every other day if not every day so the system has no time to reset. Flights these days are always very full leaving no room for those who had flights cancelled and AA cannot just add an extra flight(s) on demand.
Should probably post the rest of that which goes on to say there will probably be more negotiations over the next two weeks, then the NMB has to make a decision on releasing from mediation. Then the 30 day clock starts before a strike could occur.
Timeline on strike ?
I’m really worried about my July 20th flight to Grenada. There aren’t many other options.
What does it mean if they strike? Will they not be crew for flights? Because they striking ?
Yes, if there is a strike, there will not be crew
Are FAs with other carriers affiliated? I have worked in represented hospitals and unaffiliated hospitals, and as a good employee have never found professional representation to be especially useful. The non-union facilities paid wages absolutely in line with the union shops and the same could be said for the benefit packages offered. I found the latitude to switch shifts with others (creative staffing)and the ability to secure time PTO based on rotation vs absolute hour for hour seniority to be refreshing. I just wonder if the same would apply to AA FAs vs their counterparts?
Great we already have to deal with weather and mechanical delays and now this? So you’re going to delay the people you say you “care so much about”. And you wonder why the flying public is confrontational and pissed off. Be angry at your union for doing a crappy job in negotiations. Thought y’all are in the customer service business. This doesn’t seem very customer service by delaying us that need to get to sales meetings and trade shows.
As an American employee, I have been with the company for 3 years, and people at McDonald's make more than me.. Kinda hard when they give you the flight benefits, but you can't afford to go anywhere, and you don't get first class anymore.
I’ve stopped using American. I was a long time customer but it’s only getting worse.
Absolutely love this for the AA employees. Absolutely hate this for my Anguilla flight in July 😭
The flight into AXA is operated by Envoy, so you should be good! I am an AA employee who travels to SXM and Anquilla a lot. Different unions.
NMB isn’t going to let them strike.
The irony is that the flight attendants created this issue decades ago by unionizing. From an emotionally based standpoint we can all agree that this day in age it’s wrong to be discriminated on based on age and whatnot like the environment from years past but from a logical standpoint, what the flight attendant unions have created is a position where literally anyone, even you scrolling through Reddit, can have zero experience and no other background can apply and get hired to become a flight attendant. Having a position where every adult human on the planet is qualified to perform drastically shifts the supply and demand model so companies like AA know that when someone gets tired of the pay and benefits and quits they have 1000 more to fill the spot. Remove the union protection, arguably federal laws that promote this too and go back to the model of the 1960’s of height, weight and age requirements and reduce the amount of eligible applicants and watch the wages and benefits skyrocket.
Without unions, management could fire flight attendants for the smallest things. Delta not having a union is what caused this issue, they hold every other airline back.
Well no corporation should have to rule by fear but with the fear of being fired for anything as you stated I’m sure the quality of service would improve and then also with better service the potential for more profit and then better wages and benefits. If I know I can sit on my butt with earbuds in and not do my job because it’s nearly impossible to get fired I’d do it too. See the issue?
That’s hilarious you think the company would use the higher profit they get on the people who our CEO has referred to as cheap labor. AA had record size profit and we had the worst profit share out of any company. Unions are not the issue, it’s corporate greed and the RLA.
Then reference my first post and make yourselves more marketable. Make it harder to become/be a flight attendant. Provide better service than what I see when I ride on AA compared to Delta and United. Don’t forget a company can’t give you money if they don’t have money. Or they can and if they go under then you’ve just bitten the hand that feeds. It sounds like the AA flight attendant group needs to self reflect on their quality/quality of service before anything is going to change. Clearly the company agrees with what I’m saying because that’s what their actions are saying…
If the company wants better quality of service from us, they need to pay us the wage we deserve. Someone not involved in the aviation industry shouldn’t be talking. Don’t be a bootlicker.
Which is ironic because usually the worst service comes from the mamas who have like 30yr seniority and are well compensated. Fly to Tokyo on JAL and then AA and see if you notice a difference in service provided.
15 years… I’m sure I’m qualified to have an opinion.
Just like the people who travel on their Airlines.Do your job well and you have no worries.
They can only strike if given permission by the federal government and that’s the last thing the Biden administration will do in an election year.
Causing financial harm to the entity you’re trying to negotiate increased financial benefits from seems counter-productive.
Don't worry, your Woodford will be ready
That’s literally the point of a strike though…we want the company to hurt. Airlines can’t run without flight attendants.
Then you wonder why they view you as replaceable.
💯
Good AA is horrible. Their tech, their people, and their service complete crap. Got bumped off a flight because a stewardess didnt want to sit in a jump seat. So she took mine. Now on a flight 6 hours later than original at DFW. Just because a hour flight was too much for a worthless idiot to do their job for a hour....
that’s impossible fyi, we only get seats when they’re empty :)
Do you just often go around getting angry at made up stories?
AA bumped you buddy, not the employee. The only reason this happened is because AA had to get their employee to cover a flight somewhere and you’re probably the lowest paid ticket on the plane.
Nah originally they cancelled my trip because I missed a flight in their system. What really happened was my flight was cancelled Tuesday I got on a different one. Their system showed I missed my first flight instead of updating my trip to new flight they cancelled my return tickets. I had main cabin plus. I get to airport when I head home on Saturday and find out my confirm code has no trip and it was cancelled. They sorted it out got me on a flight home, but then the stewardess took my seat. She had a choice to use the jump seat and not bump me off. She said no I want a seat. The gate agent looks at me in disgust and says sorry she has that right.
And I’m going to tell you why she said no: If you’re not aware of the flight attendant going through contract negotiations and the company not giving them a pay raise, they’re also being stranded away from home on hold for hours waiting for flights home or hotels, and being dragged by the company. That “stewardess” has a contract agreement that gives her a confirmed seat and them offering her a jump seat is a violation of her contractual right to fly home comfortably be sitting in a JS. I’m not saying anyone’s reason to get home is more important than someone else’s, but the very person you’re pointing fingers at isn’t the right one. She did the right thing by denying a JS, and that gate agent that gave you a look of disgust…they’re wrong for doing that because they know damn well why she said no. I hope this gets across, because I’m sick of seeing flight attendants getting the “dirty looks” for corporates mistakes on your end. Hope you made it to your destination.
You anger is misplaced.
Hold strong AA. Break that union. There are plenty of sky waiters to be found on the market. Maybe we'll get FAs that actually provide customer service instead of just being grouchy working their contract. Delta sets a decent model in the US but the ME3 are so far ahead because it's not just seniority that matters.
The ME3 recruit from all over the world - they particularly love hiring South Africans. How many foreign hire FAs do you see flying on US Big 3 airlines.