Delays Have You Stressed? Your Crew Has It Worse
Amanda Pleva April 11, 2017
Bad weather and runway construction at major airports within the United States have coupled with Spring Break to create a complete disaster of long days and irate passengers. Operationally, situations like these are very hard to recover from, and no one is more aware of that than airline employees. As inconvenient and frustrating as these situations can be as a passenger, they can be just as bad or worse for us. Here are some challenges we deal with on our end of things.
We (usually) aren’t being paid
When we arrive to the airport just to find out that, suddenly, the flight is three hours delayed, nothing is more jarring than being met by an angry mob who sees us in uniform and starts demanding answers. Chances are, we don’t have any. And to boot, we are very frustrated and disappointed as well. Besides the fact that we now have a much longer day dealing with furious passengers, we also aren’t on the clock.
The rules for being paid are that we must be on board with the boarding door closed and the brakes released in order to start our hourly pay. It can certainly make things very frustrating when you’re sitting out of the way trying to eat a $25 stale airport cheese sandwich without making a mess on your uniform, and passengers approach you demanding answers. Besides the fact that we also want the same answers, we also are just essentially volunteering. It’s not my favorite aspect of being a flight attendant, to be honest, but those are the rules.
Don’t boo a late crew
We have all been in this position; we come running up to work a delayed flight to a chorus of boos and hisses. The well enough-intended gate agent has made a glaring faux pas and announced the flight as being delayed “due to the late arrival of your crew/flight attendant/pilot”.
NOT COOL.
Everyone immediately assumes that the crew, running red faced, sweaty and exhausted to the gate has been up late partying and simply did not have enough common sense to arrive at work on time. This is extremely unfair, and probably only the case .0000009% of the time. Few airlines will wait on a tardy crewmember, instead opting to replace them with a reserve flight attendant standing by or using someone from another crew.
The crew who is furiously running to the gate is likely coming in from a late inbound flight that they’ve just worked, dealing with those angry passengers. They have likely chosen to hurry to their next gate instead of picking up food in the airport – maybe their one opportunity to eat all day. Same with a singular pilot or flight attendant – they could have been called while sitting on standby to come to the airport or gate as soon as humanly possible, even though they are given on average two hours to get to work from home. To be met by a jeering mob that seems to demand answers from you is a hurtful insult. Don’t assume the worst, because it almost definitely isn’t true.
You’re on hold with the airline all day – and so are we
The other day, I was delayed enough to go under my minimum rest requirement between trips, so I had to call scheduling to let them know I needed to be pulled from my next flight. I was on hold for about 35 minutes. I counted myself lucky. Some of my coworkers experienced hours instead of minutes listening to muzak and “PLEASE HOLD” repeatedly screamed by a recording. It’s understandable that the schedulers are jammed with calls, but when we are whittled down to minimum rest and are already exhausted, waiting on the line for over an hour to get information can make bad situations that much more of a nightmare. Particularly when you’re calling about…
A shortage of hotel rooms
The worst ever situation is when bad weather forces cancellations or crew legality issues pull you from a flight. There are people stuck from cancelled flights for miles. Scheduling sends you to your hotel just to be told there’s no rooms available. Now you’re sitting in the lobby, ready to cry, on hold for hours waiting for what to do next. At least this time isn’t considered part of your required rest time, right? Ha! Of course it is. Sleep is but a dream.
We must bump paying passengers to recover the operation
After the weather or otherwise pressing situation has passed, you’ll now have displaced crews needing to get back to base or to their original flights. To do this, airlines must guarantee seats to their crews, sometimes forcing them to bump paying passengers from their flights – usually with the offer of generous compensation. There is a right way to do this, and there is a wrong way, as seems to be the case of the doctor on a United flight being forcibly removed, much to the horror of those around him. He claimed to be needing to get to patients at the hospital. While there’s two sides to every story, it seems a tough one to justify. Although if I were on that flight, I’d have given up my seat from the second I heard the doctor’s plea.
After making it back alive from a stressful week, I am grateful for the calm weather of spring. The summer thunderstorms and hurricanes of the Caribbean might be the next challenge. At no point am I diminishing the stress and inconvenience of the flying public when flights go awry, but many don’t believe us when we claim not to have information or that we don’t benefit from delays or reassignments. When we finally greet you onboard with smiles on our faces, you don’t always know how hard it is for us to put one there. We are more in this together than you might realize.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
70% of USA Originating Cruise Line Companies including all The Former Major European Lines are now owned by One American Company. This has not resulted in loss of meaningful competition, so that argument does not hold water.
Find another job that makes you happy, at least you have that option. Finding an airline that make passengers happy is almost impossible these days thanks to cartel-like consolidation. Flying didn't used to be this crappy, but the NW/DL, AA/US, and UA/CO mergers have stifled meaningful competition.
How dare you say the "crew has it worse", you have NO IDEA the effect a delay on different passengers. With the most recent Delta delay a few weeks ago, due to weather, I was waiting,for 8 hours, for my flight and there was a son, who was trying to get home to his mother in the hospital who was in intensive care, could not drive and in hour 7 she passed away. A second passenger waiting missed an important job interview, likely did not get the job. The list goes on I am sure. Don't like your work rules, speak to your union rep
Amanda, when I am flying, I am not being paid either. I only get paid when I visit a client and sell them something or provide a service. On each trip I undertake rides the salaries of multiple people, and if you look at each of the business travellers in your plane you will see very similar stories at work. And albeit tourists may have less pressing reasons for flying, both types of passengers are also instrumental in providing the airline the revenues necessary to operations. If your point is that we shouldn't take it on the cabin crew (or gate personnel) for failures due to maintenance or managerial problems, you got my vote. I even stepped in once and told my fellow passenger that the poor GA was not the responsible party for a UA mess in EWR, that really management was to blame and that she was left alone to fend for herself. But please do not assume that your travails may be worse than your pax if you don't know what these will end up being - lost contracts, missed business opp, a harder schedule later on, or just you missing the chance to say a final goodbye to a loved one.
Stop playing the old "We do not get paid until the brakes are off, doors are closed", you are told this while you are in training, if you did not agree with it then, you had a choice to leave, if you do not agree with it now, go to your union and advocate for change. You agree with it because you KNOW, that if you leave, there are thousands of people waiting to take your job. Stand on your feet for 8 hours listening to disgruntled customers, then just when you think you are going home, you get mandatory stay thrown at you, so you have to stay another 4 hrs.