AA FAs start peddling credit cards like US
Sep 5, 2014, 3:21 pm
#76
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Nobody wrote or implied anything about defacing an airplane.
Sep 5, 2014, 3:30 pm
#77
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: USA
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Is the US-branded credit card so undesirable (or the issuing bank so crappy) that the mileage signup bonuses aren't enough incentive for customers to apply for the card without the FAs hawking the cards to their captive audience? Citi has managed to issue an awful lot of AA-branded cards even without the offensive sales pitch by the "safety professionals." 
Personally I like my Fidelity 2% cash back card, but it's always tempting to earn more miles...
Sep 5, 2014, 3:38 pm
#78
Join Date: Jul 2002
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On one of my US flights yesterday, I was amused that the pitch was almost purely "fill out one of these forms and get 40,000 free miles toward award travel." They then gave examples of what you could get for 40,000 miles, and also emphasized the 500 mile in-flight signup bonus. They barely mentioned (if indeed they mentioned at all) that if you filled out the application you would also get a credit card.
Sep 5, 2014, 3:50 pm
#79
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Thank you for the reply, and I respect your opinion. I pride myself on being a good f/a and try to meet the needs of everyone on my flights, even when they're not so nice about it. If I'm on a 5 hour flight and have worked my tail off trying to make it a great experience for you and then take 10 minutes to do a quick announcement and walk thru then I'm sorry that negates the other 4:50 of great service. When I took this job I knew it wouldn't be all fun and games but I'm always up for a challenge and pride myself on being able to turn a negative situation into a positive one and a happy customer.
Did you know that maybe 1 in every 10 people even acknowledge us when we say Good Morning as they board? Most are yapping on their phones, can't hear us because their headphones are cranked up or just turn their head the opposite way and completely ignore us. Does it upset me? No, because I'm a professional. People yell at us because "we" lost their bags, they can't sit in the exit row with their arm in a cast, their family of 10 wasn't able to get seats together when they booked their getaway the day before and on and on. I always apologize and try to make it better. I buy people drinks when they feel they've been wronged or try to talk to them to resolve the situation. You say you'll treat me as a waitress because that's how I'm acting, but I will never belittle you or treat you badly because of the way you've approached me. Again, I completely appreciate your opinion and if I ever have you on.a flight I'd love to buy you a drink and chat.
Safe travels
Did you know that maybe 1 in every 10 people even acknowledge us when we say Good Morning as they board? Most are yapping on their phones, can't hear us because their headphones are cranked up or just turn their head the opposite way and completely ignore us. Does it upset me? No, because I'm a professional. People yell at us because "we" lost their bags, they can't sit in the exit row with their arm in a cast, their family of 10 wasn't able to get seats together when they booked their getaway the day before and on and on. I always apologize and try to make it better. I buy people drinks when they feel they've been wronged or try to talk to them to resolve the situation. You say you'll treat me as a waitress because that's how I'm acting, but I will never belittle you or treat you badly because of the way you've approached me. Again, I completely appreciate your opinion and if I ever have you on.a flight I'd love to buy you a drink and chat.
Safe travels
While you try to minimize it, you are grossly off on your analogy. The vast majority of flights are not 5 hours. In fact, for a random September, AA brand had 23,276 departures and 3,535,140 block minutes, which equates to an average of 151.8 minutes per departure. Since the vast majority of passengers are domestic, for that same random September week, AA operated domestically 19,887 departures and 2,627,265 block minutes, for an average of 132.1 minutes per departure.
So if you take "10 to 15 minutes" for every flight to make your pitch, you are actually impacting from 7.5% to 11.3% of the average domestic flight. But even that is misleading, as the block time includes an awful lot of time you can not be doing these pitches.
If you take out the fact that the first 10 minutes are taxi-out, 15 minutes climb and 15 mins descent and 5 minute taxi in, you have on average a cruise time of "just" 90 minutes on average domestically for you to pitch your credit card. So that "10 to 15 minutes" now is 11.1% to 16.7% of the flight. I'm sorry, but when you are taking up 1/6 of the average flight in the domestic United States to pitch your crap, there's a serious, serious problem.
ETA: I also get that your job isnt easy, but keep in mind that you are talking to people that travel just as much (if not more) than the average FA, works just as long as hours (if not longer) and also have our issues in our job. I'm sure you dont have a passenger call you at 930pm on a Friday night asking for information by Monday morning at 8, which will force you to work all weekend, after you've been out of the office on the road all week. Or get a call Sunday evening of a meeting Monday afternoon across the country. Everyone has "challenges" to their job. If someone doesnt like them, they are absolutely able to find new employment.
I personally wish that I could take half of my workday reading a book or socializing with coworkers like is the case for many flight attendants.
Last edited by imapilotaz; Sep 5, 2014 at 4:01 pm
Sep 5, 2014, 4:18 pm
#80
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Technology will take this stuff to a new level.
It will also help align FAs and management if they are well compensated for their sales productivity.
Sep 5, 2014, 5:13 pm
#81
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It's still a solicitation. But that was what someone had asked earlier. Are certain announcement interruptions for solicitations better than others?
Sep 5, 2014, 5:17 pm
#82
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Sep 5, 2014, 6:15 pm
#83
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Its tacky but represents the mentality of many executives today. Look at banking, once a very honored profession now more like slick and dishonest used car salesman. C Level people think that consumers want to hear about all this crap. I feel for the FAs. I doubt many of them desire to be a flying telephone solicitor. Its just not a Doug Parker/US thing.
Sep 5, 2014, 6:29 pm
#84
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I have a compromise:
FAs may solicit me while I'm trying to relax or work during the flight as long as I can have 15 minutes of your time after we land and you're off the clock, so that I can tell you about all the wonderful things that Amway and Jehovah's Witnesses have done in my life.... Deal ?
FAs may solicit me while I'm trying to relax or work during the flight as long as I can have 15 minutes of your time after we land and you're off the clock, so that I can tell you about all the wonderful things that Amway and Jehovah's Witnesses have done in my life.... Deal ?
Sep 5, 2014, 6:36 pm
#85
Join Date: Oct 2013
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I have a compromise:
FAs may solicit me while I'm trying to relax or work during the flight as long as I can have 15 minutes of your time after we land and you're off the clock, so that I can tell you about all the wonderful things that Amway and Jehovah's Witnesses have done in my life.... Deal ?
FAs may solicit me while I'm trying to relax or work during the flight as long as I can have 15 minutes of your time after we land and you're off the clock, so that I can tell you about all the wonderful things that Amway and Jehovah's Witnesses have done in my life.... Deal ?
Sep 5, 2014, 6:48 pm
#87
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Oy. So much rich material here. On both sides of the question.
Did you have a choice? Even if you're not required to join the union, you have to pay the dues anyway, and you get the benefit of whatever the union negotiates, no?
Doesn't matter why you need extra income. Defacing an airplane or making inappropriate comments are both rude. To those posters who feel that the credit card pitches are low class or tacky, you're going to respond by lowering yourself to that level?
See above. When confronted with inappropriate or boorish behavior, do you respond in kind? Wouldn't a more effective way to raise things above that level be to behave according to your own, presumably higher, standards, regardless of how others act?
And if the airline(s) require(s) it of the FAs? They should risk termination because you find it intrusive?
Yes, but this works both ways. I've boarded plenty of flights where the FAs are standing in the galley chatting among themselves, or one is standing near the door squeezing in a perfunctory Hello in between comments into the conversation with the other FAs.
Exactly the point I was making a couple of paragraphs back. Good on you for not lowering yourself to the level of others' rude behavior and for maintaining your dignity, grace and manners in the face of obvious assaults on them.
Who cares? This is irrelevant. No one forced anyone to work at US.
None of this is (or should be) my problem as a customer.
Again, not the customer's problem. If employees feel that they are being paid a substandard wage, they're in the wrong career or working for the wrong employer. And please don't respond with they don't have a choice. Sure they do. Lots of people are employed at jobs other than as FAs at US.
... and get rid of the unions. At least at AA, IMO APFA is most of the problem. IME nearly all FAs are nice people who want to provide excellent service but who have been deceived, misled and prevented from doing so by APFA. Take F cabin turndown service. When AA introduced it, APFA filed a grievance over the additional 45 seconds it takes to provide that service to a passenger.
Joking aside, it is defacing a plane. It's the airline's right to put the stickers on aircraft it owns (or leases). It's not your right to decide that it shouldn't have done that and put your own stickers on. If someone has a bumper sticker on his/her car which you don't like, is it OK for you to put your own over it? It's your right to choose another airline if it bothers you sufficiently.
Amen to that. If FA's want to be treated as a "professional", then dont hawk your crap like a swap meet. As other's have said, you just lost the ability to claim you are here primarily for my safety. If you were, shut the heck up and stop waiving the applications in my face when you walk by.
Did you know that maybe 1 in every 10 people even acknowledge us when we say Good Morning as they board? Most are yapping on their phones, can't hear us because their headphones are cranked up or just turn their head the opposite way and completely ignore us. Does it upset me? No, because I'm a professional.
Their bargaining agent sat around and waited and waited and waited for the US pilots to negotiate their pay raises first. Finally, in early 2013, after waiting years and years, the FAs went it alone and negotiated modest pay raises.
In 2012, the US FAs had lower average wages than even non-union jetBlue FAs (similar to the cost advantage the pilots gave Parker).
In 2012, the US FAs had lower average wages than even non-union jetBlue FAs (similar to the cost advantage the pilots gave Parker).
... and get rid of the unions. At least at AA, IMO APFA is most of the problem. IME nearly all FAs are nice people who want to provide excellent service but who have been deceived, misled and prevented from doing so by APFA. Take F cabin turndown service. When AA introduced it, APFA filed a grievance over the additional 45 seconds it takes to provide that service to a passenger.
Joking aside, it is defacing a plane. It's the airline's right to put the stickers on aircraft it owns (or leases). It's not your right to decide that it shouldn't have done that and put your own stickers on. If someone has a bumper sticker on his/her car which you don't like, is it OK for you to put your own over it? It's your right to choose another airline if it bothers you sufficiently.
Sep 5, 2014, 7:08 pm
#88
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Virginia
Posts: 1,558
AA FAs to start peddling credit cards like US?
Wow, I apologize if I upset anyone or misrepresented what I was trying to say. I do mostly west coast flying so that's where I got my 5 hour reference and as I said before I don't do it on the very short flights and would never do it if it was going to compromise other duties. I also apologize if I sounded like I was complaining about my job. I still love my job after all these years and still enjoy coming to work, if I didn't I would have quit many years ago. I'm going to stop posting on this thread, but again I'm truly sorry if I said the wrong thing. Wishing everyone safe travels.
Sep 5, 2014, 7:29 pm
#89
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Sep 5, 2014, 7:31 pm
#90
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Joking aside, it is defacing a plane. It's the airline's right to put the stickers on aircraft it owns (or leases). It's not your right to decide that it shouldn't have done that and put your own stickers on. If someone has a bumper sticker on his/her car which you don't like, is it OK for you to put your own over it? It's your right to choose another airline if it bothers you sufficiently.
