Originally Posted by
hearna
I doubt it.... Ground agents are easy to train, alot less responsibility, and can work with reduced numbers. I mean, you don't need 2 gate agents if you actualy start boarding a few minutes earlyer, and dont do stand bys and upgrades etc. If you warn people to travel light and that baggage lines will be super long, and reduce the front staff, fine. If you tell people to buy tickets online, etc etc. The number of FA's per aircraft type is regulated, and they cannot cut corners here. And these people need to be trained on the saftey features of these aircraft and what to do in the event of a multitude of different emergencies.... If the FA's strike, it deff won't be as smooth as the last strike.... However, contracting alot of flights thru the staralliance (LH, LX to europe) (SQ to asia), CO/US/UA to the states, and getting all of Chorus (JAZZ's) planes up in the air and replacing E75s/E90s with CRJs/CRAs, doing the best they can on the bigger runs (yyz-yvr) etc, and perhalps cansel flights that leave every hour or so and combine 2 of them on a widebodie with minimum staff, they have options!
Of course, there may be a last minute settlement cause all those options will cost AC alot of cash!
Training a FA takes 5-7 days depending on how many a/c types Management would like each FA to fly. It can be done in 5 days if the FA groups are split amongst the major types (Embraer, Narrowbody Airbus, Widebody).
The 5-7 days training gets the basics of customer service plus all the safety training and safety exams completed.
Robert Crandell got into a fight with AFA in mid 90s, he had AA back to full schedule in about 10 days after the strike began. At 10 days Clinton ended the strike, forced the AFA back to work and imposed a settlement. The back to work order was completed as AA suddenly didn't need to settle with AFA.
The AA strike plus a few others in the mid 90s lead to the CHAOS strike theory in the late 90s. CHAOS (Create Havoc Around Our System) involves the FA Union striking a particular section of the flight system, or a specific city or flight. The idea is to cripple the network, but not shut down the whole system. This was sucessfully utilized at Alaska and few others (UA pilots did something similar in 1999/2000).
In 1985 AC Flight attendants struck from June to early September. They were fully replaced by management and nonunion staff and had a good summer off their regular duties. The airline ran smoothly after the first week of disruption. In the end there are no customer service difference between strike or regular operations.