FA Integration
 

I know that the pilots just recently completed their seniority list integration. I'm curious what the status is with the FAs? Anyone have insights to share?

Are there any FAs on FT that can share some of the nuances or details of how things might play out? I'm especially curious how things will work out with the sCO Intl FAs, since only a subset of sCO FAs can fly internationally while all of sUA FAs can fly internationally. Will integration FA operations look more like sCO or sUA, with respect to international flying?

Judging by the senior who was the purser for my FRA-IAD flight, I would say the FA are quite senior. So much so that I felt guilty asking her to do anything that fell into her job description, asking for a refill of anything or having her do literally anything for me, if it had come down to an emergency i'm not sure this senior would have been able to open the emergency slide.

http://ourunited.org/negotiations/process/

We have 3 agreements out of 26 reached. It's a slowwww ongoing process.

We still don't know if things are gonna go the sCO way and have the separate international/domestic/speaker FA bases, or if it's going to go the sUA way and have the FA bases slathered into one domestic/fa/speaker.

sCO domestic FAs can and do occasionally work international trips just like sCO international FAs can and do occasionally work domestic trips. The way is works is say for example I put in ads a 3 day LHR trip and an out of base FA (in this case a domestic FA) can pick up the trip in open time, or I see a 2 day domestic trip with an LAX layover I can pick that trip up out of base.

On the sCO side our bid packets are categorized by international/domestic/speakers. So all Newark & Houston International FA bid packets have trips that are flown out of international bases, Newark Speaker & Houston Speaker FAs have bid packets for trips that require a language speaker and Newark, Houston & Cleveland domestic FA bases have bid packets for trips that are flown out of the domestic bases. The 5 sCO satellite bases LAX, IAD, SFO, DEN & IAD are domestic flying only so they bid for domestic flights out of those bases. Also we bid by position and aircraft type so ISM, BusinessFirst Galley, BusinessFirst Aisle, Economy Aisle etc. So we know exactly what position we are working before we get to the airport.

On the sUA side the FAs are lumped into one so their bid packets will have all flying out of said FA base example LAXSW base will have all flying for LAX FAs, DCASW will have all flying for DC based FAs and so on.

As for how it's gonna look like regarding international trips it's still too early to tell. However me personally I really hope we keep the FA bases separate and we keep the position bidding/aircraft type bidding.

They [FAs] don't have a joint contract yet, do they?? That has to happen before seniority list integration comes around.

That's the pilots -- not the F/As.

I know. Sbm12 said "they," and I immediately thought pilots, but I guess he was referring to the FAs. Pronouns...

Fixed the pronouns; sorry. Since the thread was about FAs I thought it was clear that's who I was referring to.

This is how I always felt on LAX>NRT...except now that the route is 787 (much younger FA's...interesting and a pleasure).

RUMOR
 

I've heard from some sources that the joint contract process has been intentionally slow. I understand that pmCO FAs are not particularly happy being represented by AFA and are concerned about some of the things that Jose mentions above. As such they are slowing the process.....AFA is a difficult union to deal with so I guess I'm not surprised this is taking long but not sure what benefit they get from being one of the last joint contracts. Less goodies for UA to deal out.

JOSECONLSCREW28: thanks for shedding some interesting light on this process.

At first glance that seems awfully complicated. It seems like it reduces flexibility of getting FA's to fly where needed. In practice does it work well?

OT:

I'd be interested in knowing the general preference for the various positions.

We on the sCO side position bid so we know exactly what we are working before we even get to the airport. ISMs/FSCs either work BusinessFirst or Economy depending on aircraft type.

ISM/FSC narrow body aircraft (757s/737s)
Works from the top of the bar cart (facing aft)

ISM/FSC wide body aircraft (777s/764s/787s)
Helps in BusinessFirst - 777
Works last 2 rows of BusinessFirst - 764/787

Some FAs tend to always wanna work J cabins, some Y etc it all depends. I'm an ISM and mostly work 757 TATL so I'm usually working from the bar cart.

*ISM is the title for FAs working the lead position on international flights equipped with a BusinessFirst cabin.

*FSC is the title for FAs working the lead position on domestic flights (These include flights to HI, Caribbean, Central America & Mexico)

ISM = International Service Manager
FSC = Flight Service Coordinator.

Too many tiltles and the tiltes are too long.

Howabout just follow sUA to be called Purser no matter domestic or international ?

Purser is more classy and unique to the aviation business.

Because unlike the sUA side, we on the sCO side have separate bases for international/domestic/speaker FAs hence why the distinction between ISM (International lead FA) and FSC (Domestic Lead FA)

And I happen to like the ISM/FSC titles they are unique/different compared to most other airlines where they use purser....too common kinda like John Smith or David Jones.

Is that something UA management is asking for in the FA contract? I'd be surprised if they're making that big of a leap, along with the costs of implementing a performance based program for assignments, so soon after the merger with all the other contract issues in play.

Seniority-based route assignments are the n:rolleyes:rm in the airline industry, at least for US carriers. I wouldn't expect that to change.

I'd have to agree with the other poster. Purser, is more to the point. ISM/FSC is too drawn out. I hope that's the lingo the joint contract follows, "Purser."

This it the key word SIDE.

Employees of the NEW United Airlines now work for United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL) There is no SIDE - you are now a team. A team works together!

Employees of this NEW company need to get over it and realize there is no more UA or CO - it is a new company.

Love it or leave it (your choice). If unhappy = Leave.

Well, don't let facts get in the way or anything of a good bold-typed post...

There is a side, and that's what Jose was pointing out (explaining rather helpfully). They're two separate contracts and the official term used is as he noted it.

The entire point of this thread (see title) was to allow folks to explain how the "FA Integration" was going to work. The mere word integration implies two separate components being merged. It's sorta difficult to talk about two separate contract components being merged if we have to pretend two separate components don't exist.

The bold is to show that there is no more UA or CO. This is only what has been going on this past year: (chart for UAL / DAL). I don't care about UA or DL, but if I owned stocks (I do by the way), I would choose DAL on this one (and that is the one I still "hold") DAL.

PLEASE READ THIS CHART (1YEAR):

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=U...rce=undefined;

If the Union FA's would think about who employees them, maybe they would cut the crap and work as a team. DL figured this out and they took a vote Union or Non-Union, guess who won. Non Union.

Lately, former NW FA's on DL seem pretty happy, in fact very customer friendly, except one flt I had a former union rep FA I had on a DL flt .....ing between MSP and LAS) about how she "has to work".

I could give a crap about what airline, UA, DL, AA, US, WN etc. Let me fly without hearing the UA/CO FA crying about the union contracts, etc. on a 5 hour flt. Again if you don't like it - leave.

That's not true, so why the bolding? The flight attendants, res agents, ticket counter/gate/lounge agents, rampers, mechanics, etc. all work under legacy CO
OR legacy UA contracts or workrules.

When the groups get joint agreements covering them like they're one airline, they'll begin to act like one airline.

Agreed -- they even have different systems (scheduling software, etc) that they work with. If you visit Willis Tower, they have "North" systems which are pmUA and "South" systems which are pmCO. Everything (behind the scenes minus the PSS) is pretty much still pmUA and pmCO.

Agreed. If you went on United.com and went to the careers section and was searching for job and read the job description you'll often see :

"This position will be hired under the subsidiary Continental Airlines collective bargaining agreement or divisional work rules until a joint agreement or combined divisional work rules are obtained"

"This position will be hired under the subsidiary United Airlines collective bargaining agreement or divisional work rules until a joint agreement or combined divisional work rules are obtained".

Like most designations in aviation (e.g., captain), it is actually a marine term that probably existed for hundreds of years prior to the first flight & is used more consistently on ships than planes.

Indeed the sCO names are long, but they actually describe the role, especially now that UA is cashless.

Whenever I see the title Purser I always think of Fred Grandy who played Gopher on the Love Boat, he was the Purser.

How about cashier, then? Or, ICCSP - international credit card scanner person? :D

As others have said Purser is in no way unique to aviation. In fact it is a title "borrowed" from maritime operations, I'd guess by Pan Am since they also brought us the "naval style" pilot uniform and other marketing details back in the day when airplanes competed with ocean liners.

Purser may be shorter, but unless you understand the maritime roots of the term or just fly a lot on an airline that uses it, it conveys little or nothing about what the job is.

Just doing a quick survey of other major airlines, it also seems that a lot of airlines use something other than "purser." Here is just a smattering (see this thread if you want to read a lot about the topic).

• QANTAS uses Customer Service Manager.
• BA uses Cabin Services Director
• CX uses Inflight Service Manager
• AF uses Chef de Cabin Principal, because of course they do :rolleyes:

Of course, if you flew pmUA much or fly sUA much today, you know that the flight attendants are primarily there for our safety. So shouldn't the position be called Cabin Safety Director? ;)

That is not entirely true. Like other pointed out United Airlines is operated as if it were two airlines. There is a sUA and a sCO.

See this post is correct.


You can see for yourself how UA operates. The video below is the NOC at United Continental Holdings Headquarters in the Willis Tower and there are two systems. This video in particular, they talk about flight attendants scheduling and a lady who worked on both sUA and sCO was asked which one she prefers. All over UA NOC all the departments are sUA and sCO. It is the same as running two different airlines.

HD Part 2B United Airlines NOC In-Flight Crew Scheduling Flight Attendants Network Operations Center
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJcMOHjR5mc
There are many more videos with different departments and you can see all have sUA and sCO.

And when they begin to act like one airline will they correct this:

UA - DL over the past year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=U...rce=undefined;

UA has many GREAT employees! Some bad, like any company. If UA would have looked at DL before and during the merger - they would have figured out how to do it right.

Now who suffers me - the kettle in 37J.

Kidding. I'm in 3B with my g&t. Have a great weekend! :)

You don't need to understand the maritime roots of the term or fly a lot on an airline that use it to know what Purser means, everybody know it means manager/supervisor, even my mother who only fly once a year or once every other year knows that, and she flies practically different airline everytime she flies.



CX is like many asian airlines have multiple FA levels, it is not from FA then jump right to ISM, they have two levels in between FA and ISM, they are called Pursers and Senior Pursers.

sUA also has one more level between FA and Purser, but that only exist in 744 flights, it is called aft Purser, which means Purser for Y class, a level below Purser, which not many senior FA like that aft Purser position at all.

-----------------------------

I agree with you.
When I hear the word Manager, I think of someone sitting at a desk in an office.

I just flew a transpac flight a week ago and the purser came and introduced herself to every seat. And she said, "I'm the purser for this flight." From that introduction, I knew exactly who I was talking to. If she said ISM or something I would have been very confused.

Very interesting. Given the sCO admission that the FSC are trained to lower standards, and by direct observation not even fit to work a WN flight, it should make it very easy in the contract negotiation to single out the worst of the sCO FAs by their assignment and the direct correlation to driving away the pm UA F flyers with their rude, surly behavior/service and move them to the back or entirely off the integrated list.

What's that supposed to mean? The position the ISMs/FSCs work is dependent on aircraft type :

Narrowbody : ISMs/FSCs work the top of the bar cart in Y/C
Widebody : ISMs/FSCs work BusinessFirst.

Also there's differences between an ISM/FSC.

To be an ISM you actually have to be based in an international base and be with the company 3+ years and in good standings with the company. Also when your an ISM your responsible for all the paper work, announcements etc.

To be an FSC you don't really have to anything except like bid for that position.

Also I'd say that not all of the FSCs are awful like you make them out to be.

This whole conversation is really interesting. As is another thread highlighting the "brand" and if wearing coveralls with the former company name is acceptable or not.

I work for a very large international firm. We have been through mergers, several of them. Many of you use our products. We have one name, one brand and we display it proudly everywhere we exist.

We have many union agreements, with different unions in different parts of the world, doing the same work. We have people who do the same job, in the same union but different agreements, based on geography. Different work rules go with those agreements based on the legacy firms people were tied to.

People get paychecks from different operating subsidiaries based on where they came from originally, too.

Yet EVERYONE is behind the BRAND we work for, and we are all known as working for that name. No one is still languishing around in the history of where we came from. We may enjoy talking about it at work, or proudly display awards from our careers - but on the outside, when we're meeting customers we are the BRAND we are known as commercially. This is done through outstanding LEADERSHIP from the TOP.

So as this relates to FA-INTEGRATION the topic of this thread - I don't care about who you get your paycheck from or what titles you have in your work agreement. The COMPANY needs to set a VISION for who UNITED is and every employee's job is to convey that BRAND PROMISE to the customers and to each other to deliver a CONSISTENT EXPERIENCE.

As a pilot for United, from the United side, incidentally, I have had my combined contract for about ten months. It is still not fully a single contract yet, because there are provisions from both sides that are being phased in over time. We have had our integrated seniority list for about a month and a half now, and nothing has really changed yet because it would impossible to make aircraft/seat/domicile changes overnight. The training for different seats and aircraft takes up to a year to implement.

My "new" uniform has been sitting in boxes in my closet for seven months. It arrived in three separate boxes, with the hat in one, the rest of the uniform in another, and the trinkets (wings, emblems, etc.) in yet another. We have not been told when we should start wearing them. It's gonna be bittersweet because it looks like the uniform of the dictator of small a third-world country, but my current United uniform is pretty tattered, and I'm not about to spend the coin to buy new stuff, only to be told to wear the new thing tomorrow.

My point here is that even though the company is United, it's still not fully integrated in any way. Integrated, yes. Fully, no. If you look down on the ramp, you will see people wearing all sorts of stuff that is in no way part of any uniform. It has never been an issue before, so I guess just the fact that some wear United and Some wear Continental stuff is now more an issue of loyalty than personal attention to their appearance. Even the gate agents and flight attendants have so many different approved variations in their uniform that it's not even, by definition, a uniform anymore.

I think that it's a good thing for an employee to have some affinity to where they were hired. I will always be a United pilot, and the Ex-CO pilots will always be former Continental pilots. We will never forget it, but we also will be pilots for the same airline (someday, I'm told; we're still flying for completely separate operations). I fly with pilots from many different airlines who are now United. I certainly don't take any offense in them telling me where they came from.

This integration will be a subject for conversation, and more, for far longer than any of us will be flying.

P.S. I'm secretly wearing my new shirts because they're whiter than the old ones, and they're identical. Call me a cross-dresser:D

FAB

Thanks FAB; we can always count on you to put things in proper perspective.
And please continue your cross-dressing!

Thanks for perspective FAB.

If you just put the jacket on, would that be a coat-share flight?