It should come as no surprise that the airline industry is full of disagreements between airline management and their respective employee unions. What might come as more of a surprise is the contention between various unions within an airline. Even after a merger, many airlines don't integrate their work groups. For example, America West and…
Continue reading: The Crazy Reason United Is Flying A Specific 787 Domestically
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Ben--what contract do new staff get hired under for UA flight attendants and now AA pilots?
that's why the US economy is doing so well and companies are running offshore... unions
What makes merging the two flight attendant unions so unattractive for the flight attendants. I always seem to read that the seniority thing is the issue, but if don't really get it. Is one side way more senior (avg tenure) than other? Does one side have better benefits than the other? I would think being able to work ANY UA flight would be more appealing to the FA's. But since merging unions in an airline merger never seems to happen, there must be quite a few hurdles they just cant get over.
Shaun - The issue isn't the lack of desire, but the lack of ability to come up with a joint labor contract that satisfies the desires and corporate cultures of both sCO and sUA FAs and is something the company will agree to.
This is nothing new, for the DEN-NRT flight the plane flies IAH-DEN-NRT-DEN-IAH because there are no sCO 787 pilots based in DEN and they also use IAH FAs the whole route so they fly:
Day 1- IAH-DEN (RON in DEN)
Day 2- DEN-NRT+1 (RON in NRT)
Day 4- NRT-DEN (RON in DEN)
Day 5- DEN-IAH
So basically they have a 5 day trip and only work 4 flights and also they fly the IAH-DEN flights with 3 pilots which is crazy. I also believe they fly it DEN-IAH due to there being no sCO maintenance in DEN
OT, but what is that horrible free sample ad under the post, is that new or have I been blind and am just seeing it now?
It's amazing to me that airline management can't make a case for what the complexity costs them, and what it takes away from potential earnings/salary/profit-sharing.
Or is AA's plan really to have three groups of pilots forever?
Neil -
There's still a lawsuit going on from the AW/US merger that needs to be settled before they can proceed with a seniority integration of all 3. A seniority integration that favors one side over another has the potential to cost an individual crew member hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of their career. That's why each group is digging their heels in.
@Jay: "that’s why the US economy is doing so well and companies are running offshore… unions"
Every time there is an article that points out that unions are involved in some inefficiency, someone makes a knee-jerk "unions bad, look how much they cost us" comment. Yet there are plenty of articles showing how airlines like Qatar and Emirates abuse their non-unionized workforces. Where is your comment saying "thankfully, we have unions here so that doesn't happen to American workers"?
BTW, I'm not a union member and agree that the situation Lucky describes is downright silly. But others have commented that the causes are not as simple as the effect. Getting rid of unions is not the answer.
As I understand it…legacy (pre-merger) CO ordered the 787's so it makes sense that that subsidiary gets to fly them. AND…legacy (pre-merger) United ordered the A350's so I assume that that subsidiary will get to fly them .
The FA back wages for staffing that plane for less than 10 months amounts to $3 million...wow! The FAs shouldn't even have had to file a grievance. Management should have been able to figure out there was an error without one.
It seems that a grievance must have been filed shortly after the original mis-assignment of crews to have the back pay go all the way back to June 2015.
100% agree. The whole point of unions is so that management can't run roughshod over their workers. Of course that's going to make operations more difficult to manage, but that's as it should be.
Lucky, you make the comment they could fly the plane RT to Europe. I would hazard a guess that Europe would be more of a reward for the AFA. Management would likely not want to reward grievances with a sweetheart route. I'm not sure if that's a nice route to work, just guessing a flight attendant with seniority would prefer an overnight or longer layover in CDG, AMS, LHR that in LAX.
Just a guess.
There was a time unions were need in America.
Now union is used to keep rotten employees from being fired and keeping US companies from being globally competitive.
Hope such companies just go bankrupt and the stupid union members lose their job.
Twinkies.
on the safety factor, I'd rather NOT fly on any of there UA staffed flights as those FA's are still missing the routine on that plane!!!
That's what they are on board for, SAFETY!!! service is a long passed history on that airline!
One more reason to avoid UNITED and I used to be a hugh fan and frequent flyer on them once. Same for CONTINENTAL and former AWA.
What a shame.
Ben,
You think this is weird? I flew in on AA the other day, PHL-->LAX (which still uses Gates 60-63 at LAX).
The Gate Agent there (it's all the old US Air folks) told me that he IS allowed to greet AA flights over in Terminal 4... but he's not allowed to touch any of the Jetway controls. "Union Thing".
The sub CO and sub UA FA come bracts are very different and there is a major power struggle and infighting going on inside the AFA for United. That's one reason there hasn't been a joint contract. The other reason is the company was happy to keep the work groups separate and hire FAs to the CO side in the hopes that there would be more FAs on the CO side to influence a contract vote
What I don't understand is why such a high 'compensation', if any.
Were those FAs not paid a salary at all during that period, were they not working on other flights anyway?
Do they get paid more for flying on a 787?
Isn't it time that some of them took this as a retirement bonus?!
That's what surprised me most when got to know the US better: It is super heavily unionized. We Europeans usually think that unions are only strong in Europe, but as a matter of fact they are actually very strong in the US.
Once UA couldn't find a staffer of the right union to close the cargo hatch at EWR. The hatch remained open for 90 minutes and the flight got delayed only for that reason ...
The US is nowhere near as "super heavily unionized" as it used to be. The airline industry is the exception, not the rule.
Yeah, because when a job needs to be done and an entire pool of people are qualified to complete it, we need to let union rules and idiotic nonsense dictate who works the job instead of just giving it to whatever qualified person is on site and available at the time. You know, because that way is the most efficient and cost effective way and we wouldn't dare go that route. It never ceases to amaze me how union shops are run.
Quick note about United -- The airline is offering up to 75% more miles when you buy above a 20K threshold. You can buy up to 150,000 miles this year with the offer. The deal ends tonight at 11:59pm CT. Have fun!