Originally Posted by
Bear96
Wait, what? How did we jump to the ISRs being there for safety and certified to help in evacuations?
They were there for language / cultural assistance.
Cabin crew are there primarily for passenger safety. They may have other duties (translation, serving drinks, etc.,) but the legal requirement is for reasons of safety.
That would probably have been OK with the F/A union, but UA management didn't want to pay them union wages.
Eventually things evolved so that there are now F/A domiciles in Europe and Asia, paid at union wages.
UA had foreign domiciled crews from before. That's nothing new. And the ISR's had better compensation and benefits than the union members. It was simply that the ISRs had no interest in joining the union, and the union wanted to restrict the jobs to it's own members. As a result, the once very good reputation that both UA and NW/DL had with Japanese customers was squandered, and IMHO their viability on the onward routes from NRT were significantly impacted.