Economic Value of an FA
 

At the risk of starting a flame war, I have been trying to work out the true economic value of a Flight Attendant position. There are obviously many different ways to look at this question and it is easy to come up with arguements that almost any job is overpaid and equally easy to claim it is underpaid.

So I will admit I don't really know what the job requirements are for an FA position nor do I know how much speciallized training is required. But from the surface I can come up with two different professions that can be compared with an FA on opposite ends of the spectrum - Waitress and Firefighter.

The comparison with a waitress is easy to make and addresses the most visible part of a FA's duties. But as we all know there is much more to an FA job than that.

The comparison with a firefighter is somewhat more interesting as a firefighter job is much more physically demanding and involves a much higher element of danger. But both have a primary responsibility of protecting public safety and both are "1st responders" (albeit for specialized circumstances for an FA) requiring specialized training and very long work shifts away from home separated by significant blocks of time off.

BTW, according to salary.com, the median wage for a firefighter is $37,737 and for a cocktail waitress, $13,925.

Any other interesting comparisons?

-Bruce

Oh, I'm justy dying to know what people think of this...

About 5 years ago, I would have been the first to admit that we as flight attendants were waaaay overpaid... Having topped out after only 12 years with Delta, I easily made somewhere around $80 with all the overrides, per diem, etc. That's some serious money for a job which requires little besides a highschool diploma.

Recent paycuts, benefit reductions etc. have changed this quite a bit though... I am at a point in my career where I have to work more hours to make less money than I did 5 years ago.

DeltaPurser

The job requires what, a high school diploma and 2-3 weeks of training? The cost of the training is paid for by the company, so it's not like a skill that the company has to pay a wage premium for.

Seems to be very similar requirements to any sort of service job -- restaurant server, cashier, sales clerk at a dept. store, etc.

Two points I would like to make.

1. You may be right about the service job description but FAing has become a carreer for a lot of them. As you age (both as a person and a FA) you expect higher pay and benefits. A FA that might have cost ~$30k twenty years ago now will cost you $60k.

2. One important point is the supply and demand. If the system can absorb 6,000 out of work FAs tomorrow the FAs have the upper hand. If only 100 get a job the airlines have the upper hand.

Interestingly enough my dad father was a firefighter, my brother is a firefighter and my mom was a "stewardess" (she'd proudly tell you) back in the day. There is absolutely no way that being a flight attendant is nearly as physically demanding as being a firefighter. To even attempt to compare the two on that front is laughable.

Like it or not, I think the job is considerably more akin to the waiter/waitress end of the spectrum. A waiter/waitress takes your coat...so does an FA. A waiter/waitress brings you food and drink...so does an FA. A waiter/waitress vacantly greets you when you arrive and gives you a hollow "have a nice day" when you leave...so does an FA. Come to think of it, if the restaurant were to catch fire I suspect your waiter/waitress would direct you to the nearest exit...just like an FA.

I have never been on a plane that had to be evacuated...so I may be missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. However, I'll bet that most FAs have never been on a plane that had to be evacuated either (training sessions don't count IMO). I suspect that as in most professions FAs are prone to over-valuing their contribution/worth. In the case of an evacuation, you have 150 people that are extremely motivated to get off the plane. Provided one gets the door open (with help from passengers in the exit rows) it can't be all that hard to do. Seems to me the challenge begins and ends with the evaluation of what door(s) to open (i.e. this engine is still running, there's a fire on this side of the plane, etc.), after that it a question of standing back and letting instinct (self-preservation) take its course.

The point about long periods of time away from home, etc. is a good one. But that's also the nature of the job. It's not like you're hired as a FA and then they suddenly tell you about the travel and overnights. You know that going in. So whether that's worth some kind of premium is debateable. There are some pretty nice benefits that come along with being an FA...like free travel. I don't get that where I work, do you?

Every job has its pros and cons. And in the world we live in, the expectations of every job are changing. But as far as I know, none of us are laboring under slavery or indentured servitude. We are all free to leave our jobs at any time and go elsewhere, to what we think will be a better situation. Any job is a pendulum...compensation, perks, etc. all swing back and forth from labor to management and back. Attemping to artifically stabilize such a system is nothing but pissing in the wind. I've had to change careers/fields 3 times...so hearing people griping about that kind of move falls on very deaf ears here.

As I posted a few weeks ago, that is probably changing as we speak. The 1970s saw the elimination of age/weight/gender restrictions on FAs, and many FAs saw that as a huge advance for (primarily) the women's movement. No longer would FAs fly a few years while they were single; now they could do it for the rest of their working careers.

I've never been convinced that was a positive development for US airlines. An entry-level job requiring no education beyond high school that was really not suitable for parenting (given the demands that they be gone for several days in a row) now paid enough to keep them around even as they turned 30, 35, even into upper-middle-age. Lots of senior FAs are in their 50s and 60s, with the rare examples of FAs flying well into their 70s and even early 80s.

Don't get me wrong: FAs perform valuable functions in case the airplane must be evacuated quickly. That's an extremely rare event. So rare that it might fail any rational cost-benefit analysis. So airlines continue to require them to serve beverages (and to a much lesser degree, food) to the passengers to fill the time between routine takeoffs and landings. Additionally, the FAA continues to require them to infantilize the passengers by constant harping about "safety" regulations that might fail the same cost-benefit analysis as above.

Now that FA pay is being whacked at all airlines except for WN (and their time is probably coming), we might see the "profession" of flight attendant return to its roots: something that unattached young men and women do after high school (or college, since many FAs have degrees) until they "settle down" and desire to earn more than the paltry FA wages. Flight attendant isn't a career any more than waitress or busboy.

It's an entry-level job. It's something that capable people do when they're young and something that less-capable people do as they age (if they can't or don't wish to qualify for anything else). For instance, college kids work summers at theme parks and on cruise ships. But that's something most grow out of as they age. 'Cause each year, there's a whole new crop of eager, enthusiastic college kids to take their place. Same thing with Flight Attendants.

Median annual flight attendants pay = $43,440 in 2004
 

According to the DOL at http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos171.htm

"Median annual earnings of flight attendants were $43,440 in May 2004 (about $47/hour based on 75 hours month). The middle 50 percent earned between $31,310 and $67,590. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $23,450, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $95,850."

IMO FAs are paid far above a competitive market rate which proves the financial success of unionization.

I've never understood why FAs get paid more as their seniority increases. This policy only makes sense in jobs where the more experience you have, the more profit per hour you can produce for your employer. But if we are to take the "FAs are here primarily for your safety" claim at face value, FAs' value actually decreases as they get older, as their physicial agility declines. And it's not at all clear to me how the non-safety FA job functions can be performed substantially better (in the sense of producing more profit per hour for the employer) after 10 years of experience than after 1--seems to me that those skills are picked up within the first year on the job, and then plateau.

Maybe I am missing some justification for the scaling-pay-with-seniority policy?

Good points. Pilots also want to make a lot more money as they advance, but at least pilots have the ability to be more productive; FAs can never be more productive as long as the FAA requires one per each 50 pax (or part thereof).

As pilots age, they tend to fly bigger and faster airplanes carrying more pax. The young kid flying the 19 seater makes nothing (thanks primarily to his union hogging the high pay for the seniors members) while the 777 or 747 Captain makes big money (even today, after concessions) for his or her several days per month spent on the job.

FAs are present in the same ratio whether they're 19 or 59.

If FAs were paid a competitive wage, then management could not lower their pay, as there would be no workers to fill the positions.

As it stands, if wages are lowered, there will be enough young people to take the positions.

I'm not saying it is right. I'm just saying in a free market system, if wages for FAs are lowered, there would be others willing to take the positions.

Now, if I was already a FA and thought this was going to be a career instead of a temporary job, I'd be mad and dissappointed.

However, I'd also be figuring out what my next job is going to be.

The Logic of Union Pay Scales 100
 

Unions are businesses that take a percentage of every paycheck so higher pay = higher dues = more power. More importantly, their best repeat customers (supporters) are long-serving employees for whom unions negotiate annual service-based increases. The message to young employees is support the union and you will be rewarded long-term...or oppose it and bear the wrath of your elders.

That's an interesting perspective that I hadn't thought of before. I guess to a certain extent, you can classify all jobs as either "dead-end" or "career-path" oriented. If FA's are technically dead-end jobs similar to working at McDonald's, it would require a whole shift in mentality/thinking for the entire industry, and really de-glamourize the idea of being a FA.

You could allow a select few qualified/deserving FA's to gain seniority with higher pay and promotions, but the majority would be those who just got their fill flying and then moved on to something else. It would be spelled out for them very clearly when they apply.

However, that kind of policy will never take hold as long as there is a union.

Ummm... yes I do? Most of us on this board receive mileage redeemable for free travel when our employer buys our plane tickets, no? Pretty much the same idea.

Overall I agree the points made: This is an overpaid profession relative to the skills required. This appears to be due to union leverage, and federal regulation.

I believe in the open labor market, the airlines would not have trouble recruiting FAs at $20 - $30K per year plus the travel benefit. The travel benefit, and the nature of crew scheduling, would continue to be attractive to a portion of the population (maybe not the portion currently working the position now). Similar to the job of ski lift operator... you aren't doing the job because you love loading people onto a lift, or because it will make for a fat 401K.

Yes. This is the answer for the future.
Smaller group of FAs develop themselves and their value and stay on to become pursers, the rest stay for just a few years and move onto something you can live on.

Now, for the transition: how to treat the tired, older NW lady who now years down the road finds herself sucked into an unsustainable, unrealistic position with expectations which can't be met? Many posters on this board seem to want to just dump her at the side of the runway and fly on. Perhaps there might be a more humane solution to help them transition out?

I have often thought the same thing. Maybe on internationl flights they need a seperate pay scale then domestic, because of languages, but that would then require every FA to know a second language.