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.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingne...seniority-list

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).

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.