American Airlines is reportedly launching an initiative to start scoring flight attendants based on a variety of metrics. While I’m in theory in favor of flight attendants being subject to more of a performance-based system, I have to imagine that this likely won’t end well.
In this post:
American launching Me@Work program for flight attendants
JonNYC reports on how American is rolling out what’s being called the Me@Work program, whereby flight attendants will be scored by management. The idea is that scores will be based on the last 12 months of data, including things like:
- Customer experience, based on anonymized net promoter score surveys sent out to passengers
- Operational contributions (it remains to be seen what exactly this entails)
- Delays that are coded as being due to flight attendants
These are all the details we have as of now, though I imagine we’ll learn more soon, likely from the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), the union representing American flight attendants, which will no doubt have some thoughts on this.
Furthermore, it’s not yet clear what actual impact these scores will have on the careers of flight attendants, whether their scores are good or bad. Will there actually be repercussions for those who don’t score well, or rewards for those who do score well? Or is this just about giving flight attendants feedback, maybe making them competitive with one another, etc.?
I’m all for more flight attendant accountability, but…
I’ve written in the past about why service on US airlines is inconsistent, and often bad. Among other things, I noted how airlines in the US don’t generally have true onboard managers who evaluate colleagues, and also how there aren’t enough performance based evaluations in general.
So in theory, it’s good to see some sort of a system being set up for evaluating flight attendants. That being said, I suspect we’re going to see some major issues here.
First, one wonders if this is actually the right system for evaluating flight attendants. They’ll be judged by overall impressions passengers have of flights, and also delays? Those are both things that might not necessarily reflect the performance of a specific flight attendant on a flight.
One might find that the average net promoter score is different for a flight attendant who primarily works business class on American’s new Boeing 787-9s on transatlantic flights, rather than one who primarily flies 737s around the country, since I imagine passenger perception will differ based on the overall experience.
Second, I have to imagine that this is going to get a ton of pushback from unions and flight attendants, because by and large, people won’t like programs like this. I’m curious if there has actually been any consultations yet with the union, because if not…
Lastly (and sort of related to the above point), the timing of this just doesn’t seem great, especially in light of the horrible relations at the moment between management and the union. Flight attendants recently issued a vote of no confidence in CEO Robert Isom, and I’m sure they’d love to set up a Me@Work score for Isom. 😉
Anyway, I’m curious to see how this all evolves, and I have a hard time imagining this will be implemented without some major pushback…
Bottom line
American is reportedly introducing a new program whereby flight attendants will be scored based on several metrics, like net promoter scores on flights, delays they cause, etc. While we absolutely do need more accountability for flight attendants, this definitely won’t be well received, especially given the lack of respect a vast majority of American flight attendants have for top management.
How do you see this flight attendant scoring system working out?
Scores should be based upon the performance of the crew. There should be financial incentives for good scores. There should be peer pressure from within for all flight attendants to perform. Want extra money in your pocket. Perform and stop lazy flight attendants from sitting on their butt.
The only FAs that will complain or have a problem are the ones this new program was designed for.
90% of AA flight attendants are just horrible. Lazy and sloppy. I saw one yesterday sitting during deplaning with her feet on the seat where someone will be sitting on the next flight. Fire them all.
If pay is partially determined by passenger scoring, attractive women will get more pay and fat, Black women will get less. Business class FAs will tend to get more as will any FAs that give away free stuff. Severely late flights may result in lower scores to FAs.
To generalize: FAs hate pax and hate their job and giving them "review demerits" won't fix management's tone deafness. (GAs hate pax too but that's not what this article discusses because apparently AAL doesn't see a need to rate GAs).
What ALL needs to do is have an outside firm review its spew of a management team and then bring on a new team, new C-Suite, all from outside the nepo-narcotic-flesh graveyard that is where...
To generalize: FAs hate pax and hate their job and giving them "review demerits" won't fix management's tone deafness. (GAs hate pax too but that's not what this article discusses because apparently AAL doesn't see a need to rate GAs).
What ALL needs to do is have an outside firm review its spew of a management team and then bring on a new team, new C-Suite, all from outside the nepo-narcotic-flesh graveyard that is where they raise up "new" talent.
But hey, review the FAs. See what that gets you. Beating will continue until performance improves, right? With metrics. To all the wrong people.
Why won't these airlines just leave these poor overweight lazy ornery elderly FAs in peace? Why must you all judge them constantly, just for being bad at their job? It interferes with their phone browsing time to have to deal with this nonsense. Just because they make 5x the going rate for unskilled labor doesn't mean they deserve to be held accountable for performance. Surely this is a human rights violation.
When I saw the headline, I feared for the worst. Thank God this isn't another goddamn AI thing.
All the incels are gonna have a field day with this one.
That's just what an incel would say
Will the AA, FA’s accept constructive criticism? …. not in a million years Gunga Din!
Too many people are incapable of being honest.
They already score gate agents
Perfect, now instead of seniority being the driver for the highest hourly rate, tie these scores to their hourly flight pay on that absurd pay scale. Merit based is the way to go. The talking coke machines have had their fun ruining the airline, and now it’s time to pay the piper!
Leave the AA grannies alone! This is elder abuse. We need their geriatric presence to be reminded that no matter how miserable we THINK we are, there are others who actually ARE miserable, grumpy and ill-tempered.
Unless you happen to be @just_a_deviant who is the most miserable of all...
Welcome to the rest of the (non American) world as an FA.
At my (european) airline we have had this in place for years.
The only issue I see with the scores is that customers that do tend to respond to those surveys are often at one end of the extreme. Either they LOVE the crew that looked after them or they HATE them and are using the survey as a weapon.
The ones...
Welcome to the rest of the (non American) world as an FA.
At my (european) airline we have had this in place for years.
The only issue I see with the scores is that customers that do tend to respond to those surveys are often at one end of the extreme. Either they LOVE the crew that looked after them or they HATE them and are using the survey as a weapon.
The ones that dislike the crew could be down to a reason that isn't really fair - like the crew member enforcing a safety requirement on them that they did not like. But of course could also be bad attitude on the part of the crew member. It is a difficult one to separate so I hope AA also records the verbatim comments.
The majority of passengers that are like 'yeah the crew were fine, they did their job' usually don't bother their ass to reply to the surveys.
The customer survey seems the most difficult to quantify. Personally, I can't remember the last time a FA made an impression on me -- good or bad. I feel like every feedback survey I write would be, "Yeah... everything was normal and routine."
Breaking that miserable union would be a good step on the road to fixing AA.
STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!!
Lockout!
The crews don't care about customer service right now so I doubt they will care what scores they end up with
Finally, some accountability for all the old, entitled, and disgruntled FA grannies
I think for this to work you’d need to have a dedicated Customer Service Manager who evaluates a F/a’s performance on a flight which is done by a lot of carriers. A performance review based on a crews observed onboard behaviours. I can see a lot of negative blowback
Isom just needs to go. He's gonna bury the company.
I would also love to see Isom's me@work score (you know, so people can learn what makes you CEO material).