DenverBrian

Meanwhile, TED chugs along with 4 FAs in a 156-seat configuration.

BongoVIP

Yeah^^ I have experienced this one...on both sides. Self pour of bubbly in F/C INTL flights....to grabbing a water and getting lectured ...oh well...

FortFun

At the very least it will likely make FAs jobs more generally stressful, covering for whatever the 5th person would have done. That's enough to give it a in my book.

Plus it will selectively impact the best FAs, who will bend over backwards to make sure service doesn't slip. Boo again.

Even if one has no sympathy for the FAs (though I certainly didn't read your post to mean that), as they are only human it seems inevitable that it would filter down to passengers.

Of course, if I had great confidence that this was all desparately necessary economically that might impact my view. But it's not clear UA has earned the benefit of the doubt on that.

lucky9876coins

OK, after reading this again I'm a bit confused about what's going to happen, other than obviously four FA's being on the 757. As it is wont FA's have less flights to fly with a 4%ish capacity in reduction? Then they also want to cut an FA from the 757? Does this mean we'll see lay-offs, or will FA's just not be flying a lot?

John26

Doesn't sound like you've flown many understaffed 752s at all then.

You can expect slower service in both Economy and First. Carts will take longer to set up. I don't know what the service flow is, but if it used to be be a 2-cart train, then they might either switch it to 1 cart with 2 FAs (which will need to be restocked before the service is complete), or 2 carts with 1 FA each. If the later happens it will take longer for folks sitting in Economy Plus to be reached. Either way, people in all cabins will suffer. There won't be any FA to help out in First to finish the meal services either.

If you think FAs tend to "disappear" during the flight, this will only worsen with 1 less person to take turns doing cabin walk throughs.

Moves like this show that UA is much more concerned with costs than service. Wasn't it Gordon Bethune who said, "You can make a pizza so bad that no one will buy it?"

IMHO, if United could have its way with FAs it would furlough all of them, require passengers to attend (and pay for) TK training (so they can self-evacuate) and install vending machines onboard.

Also, NOT a smart move on United's part considering the fact that their collective bargaining agreement with AFA is coming up for renewal shortly.

rch4u

If that's the accepted rule of thumb for narrowbodies, why is it such an outrage that the 757 now conforms to it?

lucky9876coins

FAA minimums, that doesn't mean serviceable. The 747 min staffing is somewhere around eight (I believe eight because of the location of the exits and not number of passengers, since that would be seven), and I'm sure we wouldn't want that.

planemechanic

If the FAA is happy with four FA's then why would ANYONE consider it a safety issue?

rch4u

United staffs all other narrowbodies at FAA minimums (3 on 737s and A319s, 3 on mainline A320s, 4 on Ted A320s) ... why should the 757 be an exception?

lucky9876coins

Because of the number of F seats. The 757 has 24 F seats so needs at least two FA's, leaving two FA's for Y, the same as every other narrowbody. The 757 has 158 in Y, between 30 and 60 seats more than the other narrowbodies.

rch4u

So, from a cost perspective, an additional FA is needed to serve 30-60 drinks ... something that takes, maybe 10-15 minutes? These are the types of decisions United has to make when fuel prices are this high and fares are not increasing quickly enough to maintain margins.

UnitedSkies

That's a good question.

If there 3 f/a's on mainline B737s, A319s and A320s, I'm assuming 1 works F and 2 work in Y.

Both B737s and A319s have 8 pax in F and around 100 pax in Y.
That means the ratio of pax to F/A on these airplanes is 8:1 in F and 50:1 in Y.

On mainline A320s, there are 12 pax in F and 126 in Y. If those are also staffed with 3 f/as, then the ratio becomes 12:1 in F and about 60:1 in Y.

On non p.s. 757s, there are 24 pax in F and 158 in Y. If those are now going to be staffed with 4 f/as, 2 in F and 2 in Y, then the ratios are 12:1 in F and 79:1 in Y.

It appears that at least for F class service, 757s will just be the same as A320s, while the pax:f/a ratio increases about 33% from 60:1 to 79:1 in Y over the A320.

Therefore, I'm not seeing why reducing to 2 f/as in F on the 757 is any different from how it is on the mainline A320, or even that much different from how it is on the mainline 757 now with 2F/3Y f/a's, aside from the fact that the Y f/a's may not be able to help out at the end of the meal service.

HaeMaker

Yea, and the food, and the hot towels, and the WARM NUTS!

Condition One

If the minimum isn't good enough, they wouldn't call it the minimum, would they?

lucky9876coins

Something the FA's often don't have on some of the shorter west coast flights...