Delayed awaiting flight attendants..who are at McDonalds!

 
Old Jul 11, 2007, 2:18 pm
  #1  
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Delayed awaiting flight attendants..who are at McDonalds!

I expect to be fussed at a bit here, but I recently had a DFW-SAT was delayed due to awaiting flight attendants. Evidently the inbound crew was so late AA found another crew and posted a short delay.

The gate agents kept announcing that the new flight attendants had landed at DFW and we were just waiting on them to get to the gate for boarding to start.

They made the announcements a couple of times.

Eventually one flight attendant showed up and went onboard.

The other two showed up shortly thereafter with bags of McDonalds.

Apparently they had stopped between flights to get food.

They gate agents eyed the bags and just shook their heads.

I know everyone is entitled to a break but it seems kind of crazy to delay a flight for the flight attendants to take a break at McDonalds but hey...at least they got it to go

In all seriousness, what is the AA policy here? Are they suppose to go directly from one gate to another when a whole planload of people is waiting to board.

Do the flight attendants feel show unappreciated by the company they really don't care enough not to stop and get on their new flight as quickly as possible?

If some inflight supervisor found out about this, could the crew be disciplined, or is it not worth messing with the union?

Also, their late arrival to the aircraft (increased by the food break) of course made the return flight back up to DFW that much later thus jeopardizing the return planeload's connecting passengers.

I also place a bit of blame on AA.

It seems short sided of them not to provide some kind of crew shuttle on the ramp at DFW. If the inbound crew arrives D30 and departs C19, isn't it cheaper to pay some guy $10/hour to drive around a van for "hot" crew connections rather than let them wander about the terminal having to use SkyTrain and then walk to the gate with certain detours like McDonalds?

It seems the reroutes and misconnects would be far more costly.

Also, isn't is cheaper to provide a sandwich or two on board for each crew rather than have to pay out for missed connections and other delay related costs rather than having the crew make a delay worse for a food stop?
chuck1 is offline  
Old Jul 11, 2007, 2:27 pm
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Without knowing a lot more, it's hard to place a lot of blame on the FAs. The break might have been their only chance to get food at a reasonable time, and it's not necessarily their fault that they were suddenly assigned to another flight when they were otherwise expecting to eat lunch.

As you point out, it seems like the kind of problem that American could probably solve by having someone to get them from point A to point B and possibly providing lunch so they could start to get ready for the flight without waiting in line at McDonalds.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 2:37 pm
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Originally Posted by chuck1
I expect to be fussed at a bit here, but I recently had a DFW-SAT was delayed due to awaiting flight attendants. Evidently the inbound crew was so late AA found another crew and posted a short delay.

The gate agents kept announcing that the new flight attendants had landed at DFW and we were just waiting on them to get to the gate for boarding to start.

They made the announcements a couple of times.

Eventually one flight attendant showed up and went onboard.

The other two showed up shortly thereafter with bags of McDonalds.

Apparently they had stopped between flights to get food.

They gate agents eyed the bags and just shook their heads.

I know everyone is entitled to a break but it seems kind of crazy to delay a flight for the flight attendants to take a break at McDonalds but hey...at least they got it to go

In all seriousness, what is the AA policy here? Are they suppose to go directly from one gate to another when a whole planload of people is waiting to board.

Do the flight attendants feel show unappreciated by the company they really don't care enough not to stop and get on their new flight as quickly as possible?

If some inflight supervisor found out about this, could the crew be disciplined, or is it not worth messing with the union?

Also, their late arrival to the aircraft (increased by the food break) of course made the return flight back up to DFW that much later thus jeopardizing the return planeload's connecting passengers.

I also place a bit of blame on AA.

It seems short sided of them not to provide some kind of crew shuttle on the ramp at DFW. If the inbound crew arrives D30 and departs C19, isn't it cheaper to pay some guy $10/hour to drive around a van for "hot" crew connections rather than let them wander about the terminal having to use SkyTrain and then walk to the gate with certain detours like McDonalds?

It seems the reroutes and misconnects would be far more costly.

Also, isn't is cheaper to provide a sandwich or two on board for each crew rather than have to pay out for missed connections and other delay related costs rather than having the crew make a delay worse for a food stop?
We just don't know if they were perhaps told to pick up a quick something "to go" and to sacrifice their due break time and any lingering over lunch. And maybe they sent the first FA on ahead while they stopped at a McDonald's that had no line queued up to bring back food to eat later. Their stop could have taken only 5 minutes.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 2:45 pm
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True...but 5 minutes can cost AA a whole lot of $ on the return leg when you have 6 people in business class SAT-DFW-LGW (hypothetical) who misconnect with just these few minutes to spare and end up on BA or someone else.

I'm not saying they shouldn't eat but every minute counts in their business and it seems between the flight attendant union and the company could come up with some better solutions.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 2:50 pm
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flight AAttendAAnts (FAAs) work very hard for little pAAy. one of the many contract renegotiations since 9/11 could have been the loss of meAAls. if this was their only opportunity to grAAb grub, would you rather they go hungry? and, yes, they did get the food to go. (i also doubt the gAAte AAgents would shAAke their heAAds. the GAAs also receive sub-stAAndAArd wAAges.)

this seems a bit petty, no?
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 3:09 pm
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Maybe more petty for AA not to provide basic meals and transfers at DFW.

I'm not just blaming the flight attendants.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 3:14 pm
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let me play Devil's Advocate. Assume they jumped off their flight, were driven over to your flight immediately without a break. Would you have posted about grouchy flight attendants on this flight?
Personally, I'd rather have a happy, rested crew anytime, even if I had to wait for one.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 3:21 pm
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Originally Posted by chuck1
True...but 5 minutes can cost AA a whole lot of $ on the return leg when you have 6 people in business class SAT-DFW-LGW (hypothetical) who misconnect with just these few minutes to spare and end up on BA or someone else.

I'm not saying they shouldn't eat but every minute counts in their business and it seems between the flight attendant union and the company could come up with some better solutions.
I guess the AAcountants forgot to run that scenario when they got rid of FA meals
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 3:46 pm
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One of the things that were taken away from FAs was Contracted food provided by AA. Even though you see FAs eating food, it's usually because people in F/C decided not to eat, so it's left over food....YIPPIE, FAs get to eat! or, the FA actually brought food with them from home.

When there is a 13hr duty day, there is usually one leg that is schedule long enough for the crew to stop somewhere to grab some food at the airport. However, when there are delays, sometimes crews don't get to eat at all. Believe it or not, there are some FAs who WILL NOT eat the airplane food even if it's the last food on earth.

When there are schedule changes, and crews must haul to the next aircraft, this is sometimes their only chance to actually get some half-way decent food at the airports...ie...McDonalds, Taco Bell, Subway, Wendy's, Chili's (since we're talking DFW here).

I remember about two years ago, we had an extremely long day with no chance of getting something to eat. We had to change gates due to a gate change and this gave us an opportunity to grab some grub. All three of us instantly got a second wind because we finally had some energized food.

There is nothing that AA can do about it until they give back food for FAs onboard.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 3:51 pm
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Originally Posted by sluggoaafa
There is nothing that AA can do about it until they give back food for FAs onboard.
Didn't the FAs vote to skip on the AA provided meals in lieu of further pay cuts??
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 3:52 pm
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Could we please all agree to stop spelling common English words with two As when the dictionary has only one?

Even American Airlines, with its plethora of registered trademarks like AAdvantage does not go as "crazy" as some folks here.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 4:06 pm
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Originally Posted by DataPlumber
Didn't the FAs vote to skip on the AA provided meals in lieu of further pay cuts??
The f/as gave up meals in lieu of bankruptcy. The paycuts were included.
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 4:21 pm
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Originally Posted by Landing Gear
Could we please all agree to stop spelling common English words with two As when the dictionary has only one?

Even American Airlines, with its plethora of registered trademarks like AAdvantage does not go as "crazy" as some folks here.
okAAy...
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 4:21 pm
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Originally Posted by mikem132
Personally, I'd rather have a happy, rested crew anytime, even if I had to wait for one.
The OP said nothing about if they had "Happy Meals".
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Old Jul 11, 2007, 4:26 pm
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I`d would be interesting to see what the marketing department would think of FA`s boarding a flight that might service first class food and has no (not too sure) relations to the named fast food brand.
"Their food better than our`s?"
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