Why Are Some American Flight Attendants Still At "WAR?"

You could...ask the next time you're on a flight with an FA wearing one? Just politely inquire?

I noticed this as well recently and was confused. Being that it's AA, perhaps those FAs consider themselves at WAR with the customers 😉

I've seen them still with the "Ready to Strike" banner. These are the flight attendants that will never serve a pre departure beverage and will do the least in flight spending most of their time sitting in a jump seat playing on their phone.

There's a contingent of AA FAs who hate their jobs, hate themselves, and hate their customers.

They are the ones wearing "WAR" lanyards.

I flew FRA-JFK earlier this year in SQ first class. I then got on an AA flight to DFW later the same day, and was “served” by a very, very miserable flight attendant wearing a WAR badge and lanyard. The service was so bad an aggressive that it was actually borderline funny.

It was a bit of a shock after 8 hours on Singapore Airlines. I am still laughing about it.

Some of these crew don’t know they’ve been born.

@ JC -- True, maybe I'm just too introverted, but I struggle with figuring out the non-awkward way to ask. "I notice you're wearing your strike lanyard, but you now have a new contract, so I'm just curious, why are you wearing it?" I could see that not being very well received by some flight attendants.

Could play dumb and say "I noticed your lanyard...what are you ready for?"

Yeah probably playing dumb and asking what the lanyard is for could be good. Someone asked (before the contract) just like this on an American flight and the flight attendant started ranting to them for 5 mins and seemed to enjoy talking about it.

AA’s regional subsidiaries (PSA, Envoy, etc) have different contracts. One of my FA’s on a PSA flight I took recently explained that PSA flight attendants just voted to authorize a strike. They’re actually represented by the AFA, not the APFA. So the FA’s you’re seeing might not be mainline, but work for an American Eagle subsidiary instead. But that’s just a guess. I’d need more context as to in what circumstance you encountered that.

It is somewhat comical that they are so quick to throw people off the plane for political expression and then they think they are above regulations. American is such a sorry company and their employees have to be the most angry humans ever. It’s a sad existence for everyone.

I asked a F/A on Sunday... a mainline F/A who was commuting on my flight, sitting across the aisle (in an oddly empty First cabin, only 3 of us out of 12 seats). We were chatting a little bit while waiting in the aisle for the door to open. She had one of the red lanyards. I asked, isn't the contract ratified? She said "oh... yeah... I should change this. I can't find my old one and I don't want to pay for a new one."

So would sound like (as is the case with several companies) lanyards are part of the uniform they have to pay for or use credits.

Trying to be a badass union militant.

I guess it's also the routes I've been flying but the American people never struck me as being union people. Are the American Eagle and other regional carriers people typically represented by the same union?

"I personally find the US culture of expressing this displeasure while on the job to be a bit strange."

this is also a thing in Korea

I still wear mine because it's both permitted and useful with the retractable portion for the ID when scanning at the boarding gate for work flights. And while the new contract was passed, there is still a long, uphill battle to implement each of the provisions. The company took years to implement many of the provisions from the last contract, and they're already saying it will be years for many of the new provisions. And some of the provisions that were not supposed to be implemented for some time (e.g. provisions that benefit the company), were implemented prematurely and unilaterally by the company. Suffice it to say, the "WAR" never ends. As for replacement lanyards, APFA is working to order and send out new lanyards in the near future that would replace the WAR message. Until then, I'll keep wearing mine.

~AA FA

And for what it's worth, I love my job, and I take pride in how I treat and interact with my passengers. And I always do my pre-departure beverages 😉

I do not understand why more airlines don't treat lanyards as a mandatory uniform item and issue branded ones that match with the rest of the uniform. It avoids any controversial messaging and also presents a much more professional image. The ROI from branded lanyards and PPE far exceeds the relatively minimal cost of issuing these in my experience. It also provides a canvas for short term branding promotions like advertising new routes, new credit cards, etc..

At a past airline, I even wanted to sell joint branded advertising space on the crew lanyards to a partner, but after some opposition from the crew during consultations we scrapped the idea. Their loss if you ask me, as we were proposing a revenue share between the airline and the crew who wore the joint branded lanyard.

For what they get paid, they can afford to buy a new lanyard.

I've worked for two airlines where the lanyard was a required uniform item - the entire company from CEO down wore the same one. At one carrier, they stated it as a matter of PPE - only their lanyard was certified for the breakaway requirements.

It really is just tacky wearing something that's anti-employer while at work. Those passengers who do get it find it offensive - If you hate it so much, and you're giving me crappy service, why do you work here?

So then you're just on permanent silent strike? Got it. Believe me, we notice.

It varies. Envoy Air, one of the American Eagle brands is AFA, which is the largest FA union in the country. AA is under APFA, which is solely AA mainline FAs. Not sure about Piedmont and PSA, likey also AFA. Then there's other non-wholly-owned regionals under the AE brand umbrella, and they're either under AFA or another union, like Teamsters or local union.

To my knowledge, all of the American branded airlines under AA are unionized. From the pilots to the FAs to Ops to mechanics, rampers, gate agents.

The only U.S. airline that has certain departments non-union momentarily is Delta. Their pilots ARE unionized under ALPA, which is the largest pilot union in the country, same as AFA for FAs. Delta FAs are not momentarily unionized, and likely a lot of other departments at Delta are not momentarily unionized. Delta is working hard to keep it that way, but it may not stick.

FA who said they need to pay for a lanyard is incorrect. The company does not charge, they freely have them available. I used to work for AA but no longer. We would try to get them to wear the company lanyard but they refused. The issue has several facets … the company, as in those above base management, does not support their frontline management to actually hold FAs accountable. Crew Managers are underpaid, unsupported and overworked, and leaving for other companies like rats fleeing a sinking ship. AA has a many wonderful FAs, but having worked for a few airlines in my day I can confidently say that AA FAs are some of the most entitled, combative and lazy people in the industry. Their in-house union constantly goes against the company for the sake of doing so, they are their own worst enemy. Ironic since they are now one of the highest paid FAs in the industry world wide. Top out pay is $92 per hour, yet they can’t be bothered to be in basic uniform compliance. Sloppy and disappointing. AA has lost control over their workforce and their brand. And the FAs are delusional in thinking they are the best out there. For the sake of their jobs and the future of the company I hope AA management is able to regain control.