Parzival

Hello,

I was just curious about flight attendant seniority. By this I mean, do flight attendants that are more senior work in the more premier cabins or are there bids? Also how/what is their seniority based upon.

Thanks

-P

Adam1222

on what airline? On a unionized carrier, how to determine seniority is a heavily negotiated topic.

LondonElite

Fly on any US legacy carrier and you'll notice the choice routes (to LHR, CDG, FCO, etc) are taken by the 'battle-axes'. If you are looking for the young, fit, and bubbly cabin crew/stewardesses, take a Sunday 7am flight from SFO-LAX on UA.

Yes, I know this a massive generalisation!

JDiver

Wow, talk about false and offensive gender and age stereotypes!

In the US, two issues affect flight attendants' assignments.

First, gender and age (among others) discrimination in employment was legally prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.

This means that in the USA it's no longer legal to employ people and then terminate them when they get married or have a child, or at certain arbitrary ages (45 has been common and still used at China Southern), which were built into airline hiring practices until these laws came along.

Today, airlines examine "BFOQs" - Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications. Flight Attendants are tested annually at least; if an FA is unfit and can't pass the tests or perform the duties required by the FAA etc. for the job, they must stand down from that job - but not because they reach a certain age or break stereotypes about physical appearance, for instance.

In a number of Asian countries, for example, airlines still discriminate (legally, in many instances) based on appearance, age and even marital status or pregnancy.

Unions in the USA fought the battles to make airlines toe the legal lines established by law.

They also, IMO, in a zeal to institutionalize retention, made seniority the prime criterion for flight selection in the typically used "bid" process. This means FAs "bid" on their predilect flights, often in concert with friends and those with similar work approaches - "buddy teams". (In my opinion, airline managers in the US shortsightedly exchanged supervision, job evaluation and merit in return for wage and benefit concessions to union members.)

Some FAs I know prefer certain flights - their station airport (so they don't have to commute) to, say FRA, HKG or NRT. Others prefer flights they can accomplish a "day's work" in one round trip: a previous #2 on AA's seniority list, for example, preferred DFW-SMF-SMF, because after that she enjoyed several days off and overnight end at home and not a distant hotel.

In the end, FAs have different preferences; some prefer premium cabins because there are fewer passengers, some settle on certain preferred destinations, others prefer working the galley, some get minimal extra pay to handle the necessary cabin paperwork ("pursers" in the US do that, whilst other, non-US airlines might have Cabin ServicevDirectors or others with lead / supervisory rôles), some prefer shorter routes allowing them to remain home off work.

Junior FAs, because of the bidding system get what their seniors don't want. Crowded cabins, unpopular routes, etc. and at one time, when expensive New York City was a station for those craving long, prestigious international routes the juniors who got "leftovers" and we're forced to rent tiny, cheap apartments shared with as many as seven others.

It's summarized by saying seniority rules, and the buddy system often means a "cabin culture" of FAs with similar approaches to things like work ethics.

Indelaware

Indeed. Such talk has no business on FT -- or elsewhere, IMO.

I try to fly around airlines which have such backwards thinking in their staffing.

Parzival

It seems to only be the case with U.S airlines. I've heard from British and French FAs that even juniors get some pretty nice chances on good flights.

MSPeconomist

On some airlines, language skills can enable junior FAs to get more desirable flights.

gpia

From my experience, stations are assigned in order of join date. During the pre flight briefing, they would go down the list and the most senior (i.e. the attendant that has been with the airline longest) gets to take his/her pic. It usually goes 1A, 1B...etc, but one actually chose Y when her name was called, although there were still stations in the back of J available. Told me she loves F, but chooses Y over J on this flight full of OP-UPs...

Parzival

Thank you all very much for the new information.

DaveBlaine

When can we go back to this?

Adam1222

When we decide racial and sex discrimination in employment are good things.

DaveBlaine

1-ADAM-12 Roger.

Parzival

Ahhhh. Well. Long gone are the days of airline jobs being glamorous.

MSPeconomist

Not necessarily. I've been told that on DL international, FAs do business class in one direction and coach in the other, with the purser (who works in business class) serving as the inflight service manager for coach in the other direction.

FAs with particular language skills would be assigned to certain positions too, sometimes serving the Asian meals or distributing landing cards but not spending all their time in the galley.

beckoa

Fun movie reference.

As this is more general travel discussion, we'll try this over in a different forum, for now.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk