American Puts Attendants on Standby
Joe Cortez June 15, 2018
American Airlines flight attendants may not know their exact schedule this summer, as the carrier tries to cope with more demand. The 27,000 attendants flying with the Dallas-based carrier received an executive memo with a clear message: “There’s no getting around it — reserve numbers are going to be higher in July than they were in June.”
American Airlines flight attendants’ schedules will get a little wilder this summer as more of them are put on reserve status in July 2018. Chicago Business Journal reports cabin crews received a memo from airline Vice President of Flight Services Jill Surdek informing them of the scheduling change.
In normal situations, flight attendants can bid on their monthly schedules, with international and premium assignments going to tenured employees. But the airline can also designate some flight attendants for “reserve” duty – meaning they are on-call to join a flight crew at any time for an unknown distance.
In the memo obtained by the Journal, Surdek was clear about her intentions. “There’s no getting around it — reserve numbers are going to be higher in July than they were in June,” the executive wrote, as quoted by the Journal. “And systemwide, the total number of reserves is up about 1,000 across all bases year over year.”
The schedule change is not tied to the alleged abuse of shift-switching by some employees. Rather, the airline says they are struggling to keep up with the “high utilization” of employees this summer. This could be tied to the projected increase in passengers aboard commercial aircraft. Earlier in May, Airlines for America projected airlines would add more available seats to meet an increased summer demand.
It is unknown how many flight attendants could be put on reserve status next month. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union representing American flight attendants, have not provided a public comment on the internal announcement.
American is not the only carrier facing personnel shortages this summer. The Journal also reports Delta Air Lines is offering flight attendants a $1,000 bonus if they work over 100 hours per month in June, July and August 2018.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
Exactly. In the US, fight attendants aren’t paid until the aircraft brakes are released at the gate.. so all the times you have a 4 hour delay in the airport, then the hectic boarding process, FA’s aren’t paid for that. 100 flight hours in a month is considered on the higher spectrum.
That's100 flight hours... not including the time they have to sign-in (about 1-2 hrs prior to takeoff), the time spent on their layover, irregular delays/rerouting, the overnights away from home, etc.
I guess this is because so many hours a flight attendant works are unpaid and don’t count? I assume working 100 hours for them is very similar to 160 for most other jobs with all the hours before the doors are closed...
To clarify, that 303 hours is over 3 months. Not bad.
100 hours per month? I've worked over 100 hours a WEEK many times. Would not recommend it though... so many years later and it catches up with you. Decent bonus for working over 100 hours each month. That's an extra $3.30 per hour if working 303 hours or so. Hopefully enough will be interested and there won't be flight delays due to lack of cabin crew. That causes a massive domino effect for the entire industry.