Plane-is-home

First of all they don't have that kind of Union contract. It's a free market. If the companies don't treat them well, they go and work for another airline because they are not limited by all this seniority list BS. If they don't treat the company well they get fired or in case of many Asian airlines their limited contract doesn't get renewed. Free market. And to the surprise of many, FAs in average make far more than in the US and their employers generally make far more profit.

choijw

I don't believe unlimited duty day is the way to go. The contracts SHOULD have been written so a 3 hour delay would not have made them go over time especially at an outstation where there is no replacement staff.... Indeed, much fault lies with (previous management) CO and (current) UA management rather than with the FAs (who exercised their rights as stated in their contracts).

If a foreign carrier was in a similar situation (as CO), it would have went bankrupt. Assets divided up, staff with no jobs (ala Swissair). This would be preferable, no animosity between management and staff with the customers in between. Instead, the customers are stuck with this hopeless situation....

JFKSFOLAX_friend

What happened to the OP?

bouncingbug

Well, he/she definitely didn't fly home on that flight

drrn

UA had 2 flights from MUM-EWR this Friday. I was on the regular 49. They had one just before mine to ferry all the stranded passengers (24 hours late)

I feel quite lucky - I was originally scheduled on Thursday.

craz

+1

thats what everyone keeps forgeting it wasnt the whole crew or even the majority and skibum_nj got it Right when they said the 5 claimed fatigue as their reason , yet had Corp come up with the extra $$/beenies all of a sudden the fatigue would have gone away, give me a brake and lastly remember most likley it affecetd 3 flights not just the BOM-EWR but to wherever that 777 was going to be heading the next day and the return from that next location

goodeats21

Replacement bold text mine.

I think this makes it a little more accurate.

drrn

From the customer's perspective, whether it is the UA management or the F/As:

cutting your nose to spite your face.....

I am at a loss to understand why the UA Management found it impossible to provide some compensation to F/As who agree to stretch AND equally at a loss to understand why F/As had to do an "OK Corral" in front of the hapless passengers..

Mutually Assured Destruction - even for the paying passengers, I guess..

mduell

How long did it take for all passengers to be reaccommodated and on their way?

brp1264

I didn't know UA operated direct flights between Newark and Kenya - Perhaps you mean BOM?

That being said, there is a lot of conjecture here about what exactly happened. What we don't know is the perspective from the 5 FAs who held out. While we way may rush to place the blame on them, it is likely that in the past they were put in a similar position and made the choice to carry on with the flight expecting UA/CO to do the right thing and provide compensation after the fact. If that didn't happen previously, perhaps they wanted to make sure now, before they got on the flight, that they would be provided with the reasonable compensation for waiving their contract. Yes, this of course put the other crew and passengers in a crap position, but is likely their only way to get the point across to an employer who might use this delay as a reason to give them the shaft.

craz

Highly doubt thats the case, simply since all the others wanted to work the flight. Had those 5 simply said 1 min last week we had the same situation and ended up getting Zilch after we worked and asked. Im sure the others would have backed them up and not said 'well maybe this time you will get something after the fact', everyone would have said we arent working it.

So as nice as it sounds I doubt your side was the reason

mmayer

As noted earlier in the thread there were two flights from BOM 5/18.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL49

That must have been an interesting flight since it would be all the same crew.

FLYMSY

So, as reasonable as it sounds, I doubt that your hypothetical scenario would have occurred.

chinatraderjmr

I was looking at FT on and off during my flight back from Dubai today. One of the F/As is a friend of mine so I was showing her FT and this thread in particular. She was shocked and called over another f/a and the purser. They were laughing so hard it was embarrassing (for me cuz they know I fly UA). They said if one of them pulled that, there bags would be packed by security and when they finally got back to Dubai they would probably not even be allowed into the country (just a pink slip and one way ticket back to there home country

Keeping it in perspective, they have strict duty hours as well and are not expected to work past there legal hours, are paid better then American F/As and have a host of other benefits (free housing, tax free salary). Of course THEY HAVE NO UNION!!! but I know a lot of EK crew both cockpit and cabin and they for the most part say they are treated VERY FAIRLY by the company. I asked what would happen in a case like this (EK HAS SOME OF THE LONGEST FLIGHTS IN THE WORLD, DXB-LAX, SYD-DXB, DXB-EZE, ETC). She said if they (the crew) were unable to agree if they were legal or not to fly, like what happened here THE FINAL WORD RESTS WITH THE CAPTAIN. IF HE SAYS FLY, THEY FLY, IF HE SAYS THEY ARE ILLEGAL, THEY DON'T END OF STORY. when away from the base the Captain is in charge of HIS crew. If they go over there hours they don't have to worry about having enough rest for the next flight as they ALWAYS have 72 hours off after any flight over 13 hours.

To be fair - EK does carry more F/As per flight then UA. I don't know how many work that sCO long haul 777 from BOM but she said on a 14-15 hour 777 non stop they carry up to 21 crew so the cabins are "FULLY STAFED DURING LONG CREW RESTS" (this includes a purser AND service manager that don't serve drinks/meals)

Wow, what a concept!! Making sure the passengers are taken care of EVEN during crew rests. NONE of that 1 F/A sitting alone in the galley reading People and counting the minutes till its her turn to rest

DLPhoenix

I have experienced a similar incident a few years ago in TLV where the flight crew rest became unusable. The pilots asked for two BF seats to be cleared, the station manager insisted they accept Y seats for crew rests and before you knew it the crew timed out and the flight was delayed until the next morning.

Many of the passengers blamed the pilots; IMHO it is all about management and the corporate culture they create. Executives get paid a lot more since they have to deal with such problems.
Assuming the OP understood the situation I am willing to bet my two cents that nobody in UA management had the balls to suggest terminating FAs that tried to blackmail the company. It is either safe to fly when you are so tired, or they should have pulled an unconditional safety clause. A few dollars in the FAs pocket will not rectify an unsafe situation and asking for those dollars is blackmail. And the problem is not with the unions, it is with management that will not do their job within a given constraint.

DLP