Several months ago, American Airlines management decided it would start scoring flight attendants, with a program called me@work. The idea is that the scores are based on customer experience, operational contributions, and delays.
As you’d expect, the union representing flight attendants didn’t take kindly to this, so it responded by (sort of) trolling management with its own scoring. Well, those results are now in, as flagged by View from the Wing, and… ouch!
In this post:
American management fails flight attendant survey
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), which represents American’s nearly 30,000 flight attendants, decided to conduct a survey among members regarding their perception of management. This was called them@work, clearly intended to troll the me@work scoring that management tried to do of flight attendants.
The results have now been published, and the union claims that management has received a failing score. More than 8,000 flight attendants took part in the survey, to share how they feel about their relationship with inflight management, including the level of support they receive. The survey results include the following:
- 96.2% of flight attendants surveyed say that management hasn’t followed through on its promise to provide dedicated subject matter experts and increased support for flight attendants
- 84.1% of flight attendants surveyed say that they haven’t seen inflight managers provide the level of in-person support in the terminals that were promised, including assistance with catering, contractual issues, legalities, hotels, and transportation
- 81% of flight attendants surveyed say they don’t feel empowered to go above and beyond for customers, without fear of criticism or discipline from inflight management
- 72.6% of flight attendants surveyed say they’ve personally experienced the operational effects of excessive flight attendant removals, including TTS denials, staffing shortages, rescheduling, or reduced scheduling flexibility
- 61.4% of flight attendants surveyed say they have found inflight management to be unsupportive
The union goes on to share the following:
The assessment worked as intended, and your push for management accountability is already producing results. Inflight Management has reached out to APFA Leadership and provided assurances that meetings that previously could have been handled by phone or email will return to those more appropriate channels. This change should significantly reduce the number of Flight Attendants removed from the line for meetings. Fewer unnecessary removals mean fewer vacancies for the operation to absorb, less strain on staffing, and greater scheduling flexibility for Flight Attendants. It should also allow Inflight Management to spend more time where Flight Attendants need them most: providing meaningful support in the terminals and on the aircraft.
We said that if Inflight Management would not survey Flight Attendants about their relationship with management, APFA would do so and bring the results directly to management to drive change. These results make it clear that American must invest in the relationship between Flight Attendants and Inflight Management. Building trust and providing meaningful support are essential to creating the workplace and customer experience that American says they want to deliver.
The union is trolling here, but I can’t really blame them
What can one really say here? The union representing American flight attendants is obviously sort of trolling management here… but can you really blame them?
In theory, I’m all for flight attendants increasingly being scored for things other than just seniority, since it might help to change the service culture. However, it has to be more collaborative than what management proposed.
Also, management’s timing was simply awful. Management’s performance has certainly been dismal in recent times in terms of financial results, flight attendants had issued a vote of no confidence in management, and pilots had made subtle threats to the board regarding failures.
So of course when a union puts out a survey like this, results are going to be negative. For that matter, just over 25% of flight attendants participating in the survey isn’t exactly great participation. So it sure seems like those with grievances would be most likely to respond.
Again, I don’t blame the union here, but ultimately I wouldn’t read too much into this, and would just view this as typical catty drama between two opposing parties.
Perhaps the most alarming survey result is that 81% of flight attendants say they don’t feel empowered to go above and beyond for customers, without fear of criticism or discipline from inflight management. I’m not sure what exactly this is referring to, but that’s definitely not a way you want frontline employees to feel, if that actually represents the overall sentiment.
Bottom line
Several months ago, American management said it would start rating flight attendants with a me@work score, so the flight attendant union responded by rating management with a them@work score. Unsurprisingly, management failed pretty brutally, but that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. If anything, it’s interesting how low participation was, as only a little over 25% of flight attendants participated.
What do you make of these American management scores?
pot....kettle continues
As stated once in a satirical comic:
"The survey results show huge dissatisfaction with management. We will need to introduce some changes... to the survey!"
When do the passengers get their chance to rate the flight attendants?
If AA followed JAL model, upper management would be taking an enormous pay cut; doesn't anyone notice that when management takes ownership of mistakes that companies fair better.
1/3 of the FAs took the survey put forward by the union. Those are the slack asses that should be worried about being disciplined. Withholding service is an issue and needs to be dealt with. So, no. 81% of FAs don’t fear retribution, just 81% of the problems do.
The most ridiculous thing thus far in 2026:
‘81% of flight attendants surveyed say they don’t feel empowered to go above and beyond for customers, without fear of criticism or discipline from inflight management’
I see it as 81% or possibly 99.81% of flight attendants from AA are just lazy and want to do the most minimal required things so that they can sit and chat with each other. So, if they want management to...
The most ridiculous thing thus far in 2026:
‘81% of flight attendants surveyed say they don’t feel empowered to go above and beyond for customers, without fear of criticism or discipline from inflight management’
I see it as 81% or possibly 99.81% of flight attendants from AA are just lazy and want to do the most minimal required things so that they can sit and chat with each other. So, if they want management to be gone then at least a good number of the laziest AA flight attendants should be let go as well. Management is not the only problem at AA.
Those are some bAAd scores
What is inflight management at AA? I thought there were no managers on board US3 flights?
There isn't management onboard every flight, but there is a management structure in the inflight department, both at HQ and in the individual bases.
YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER
One could take this as the AA flight attendants are unhappy with their jobs.
"Perhaps the most alarming survey result is that 81% of flight attendants say they don’t feel empowered to go above and beyond for customers, without fear of criticism or discipline from inflight management."
I would read an entire investigative series on this statement. Perhaps a whole podcast run.
Clearly, individual FA initiative could use a lot of work at AA. But if there's something more going on here at the management level, it would explain a lot
For the love of dog, 1990!! You don’t have to reply to every flippin’ comment on here. You just can’t help yourself.
(That includes mine)
*nom nom nom* Delicious bait! Not gonna "Report" you, but you might want to re-read the good old OMAAT Commenting Guidelines: "Do you have a strong disagreement with another commenter? Please stick to addressing the points they make, rather than making it personal." So, do you have any opinions on the actual topic here? Personally, I think the crews are onto something.
1990 is gonna make Diamond by this weekend.
Was it worth your soul?
I stopped reading her comments a looooong time ago. Gets me through what I want to read much faster.
Think those are bad? Passengers hate AA more.
Each FA mirrors the other FA's answers , exactly the same as management mirroring each other.
Are you doing haikus, again? Fine, here's a better one:
Real crew doing work,
Not the ones writing the PR,
Support the frontline.
Big surprise, workers use anonymous survey to dump on management. Yeah, that's never happened before. Since most of them can barely managed to operate an overhead locker, I'm not sure they're reliable critics of the people running a huge multinational company.
Woah. Long-distance corporate bootlicking all the way from Australia to DFW. Right, let's totally ignore the frontline and trust the suits hiding behind spreadsheets. (Have fun at Bathurst 1000!)
"Corporate bootlicking"? Frontline employees have all sorts of chronic gripes about management, but most of them don't have the first clue about the realities of running the place. Serious suggestions about quality and process improvement are always welcome, but employee surveys rarely result in any decent input; rather, they're used as a conduit to bitch about how hard-done-by the workers are, and complain about how nobody understands the troubles they've seen. Working at AA is...
"Corporate bootlicking"? Frontline employees have all sorts of chronic gripes about management, but most of them don't have the first clue about the realities of running the place. Serious suggestions about quality and process improvement are always welcome, but employee surveys rarely result in any decent input; rather, they're used as a conduit to bitch about how hard-done-by the workers are, and complain about how nobody understands the troubles they've seen. Working at AA is not compulsory. If you're so deeply unhappy, move to another company; except no, they won't do that, because it would mean abandoning the precious seniority that lets them organised their work around their life, when most people have to do the opposite. But no, it's such a terrible job with endless adversity and bottomless misery. Obviously, that's why so many of them keep doing it for decade after decade.
And for the record, I'm not a motorsport fan. Besides which, we're going to a birthday party in NZ that weekend.
Ah, the "if you don't like it, just quit" trope—the final refuge of an argument running on empty. Nah, seniority isn't a gift from management; those folks earned it, often after decades. Regardless, no one is going to surrender their hard-earned contracts, and they have every reason to call out this toxic digital micromanagement.
(Oh no, too refined for the Supercars, eh. Darn. Safe travels to NZ! Ski season ending in Queenstown early October,...
Ah, the "if you don't like it, just quit" trope—the final refuge of an argument running on empty. Nah, seniority isn't a gift from management; those folks earned it, often after decades. Regardless, no one is going to surrender their hard-earned contracts, and they have every reason to call out this toxic digital micromanagement.
(Oh no, too refined for the Supercars, eh. Darn. Safe travels to NZ! Ski season ending in Queenstown early October, right? I've only seen The Remarkables in summer, so...)
From the sample questions believe the survey is targeting front line managers not corporate.
Can I rate AA flight attendants too?
I put them somewhere between power trip and non existent.
Wouldn't you want your flight attendants to be between power trip and nonexistent??
I think I see where you're coming from.
You seem to get the scales off.
Typical AA would be non existent. When they go worse beyond non existent is when they come out of their barricades and unleash a powertrip then retreat back behind the barricades.
Not to go on defense for AA, but this one result really discredits the whole survey for me.
81% of flight attendants surveyed say they don’t feel empowered to go above and beyond for customers, without fear of criticism or discipline from inflight management
Unless it truly is that bad, which I don't think it is (why would an airline punish an employee for going above and beyond, unless it had a major operational or...
Not to go on defense for AA, but this one result really discredits the whole survey for me.
81% of flight attendants surveyed say they don’t feel empowered to go above and beyond for customers, without fear of criticism or discipline from inflight management
Unless it truly is that bad, which I don't think it is (why would an airline punish an employee for going above and beyond, unless it had a major operational or financial implication for others), it seems that those that chose to take the survey (probably around 1/4?) may actually just not want to go above and beyond, and what better way to do that other than to blame management.
In most real jobs, undermining and/or badmouthing one's employer in public tends to get one fired. I've seen it happen.
This doesn't mean that I don't believe that American's management can't do better. The airline's financial results relative to its peers are ample evidence of that.
But maybe (repeat, maybe) American's poor financial performance could also be evidence of employees who are not doing their jobs as well as they can.
This...
In most real jobs, undermining and/or badmouthing one's employer in public tends to get one fired. I've seen it happen.
This doesn't mean that I don't believe that American's management can't do better. The airline's financial results relative to its peers are ample evidence of that.
But maybe (repeat, maybe) American's poor financial performance could also be evidence of employees who are not doing their jobs as well as they can.
This is an observation that may get me criticized by a few people. But I'm throwing it out there as a possibility. All I can do is offer an opinion, After all, I've never been the CEO of an airline.
Chicken and egg problem for sure, but AA in its entirety is an unappealing choice for me as a flyer because they don't go where I want to go. Flight attendants can't help with that
I don't wanna get criticized for commenting on every comment but, DesertGhost, I loved that 'nod' at the end! Brilliant! (Gotta start our own airlines so we can claim to be CEOs!)
8000 out of 30000 responded. Could we make a conclusion that 22000 are happy and that the 8000 are the problems that me@work is targeting?
So... to you, 'silence' equals 'consent'... (thought we learned this isn't 'enough.')
And, if we follow your logic further, I presume, you also believe that non-voters 'support' whoever ultimately wins in elections, too? Listen, I'd be fine with an Australian model where everyone participates, or pays a fine, but that's probably not happening, here, anytime soon.
If you think American's flight attendants think management sucks, you ought to survey gate agents and other customer-facing staff in the airports. My god I've never encountered staff who seemed to hate their jobs that much ANYWHERE.
The FA view of NOT being empowered to help customers is indeed absolutely damning and should result in senior management heads rolling. There's the root of most problems with this airline.
American Airlines sure seems like it must...
If you think American's flight attendants think management sucks, you ought to survey gate agents and other customer-facing staff in the airports. My god I've never encountered staff who seemed to hate their jobs that much ANYWHERE.
The FA view of NOT being empowered to help customers is indeed absolutely damning and should result in senior management heads rolling. There's the root of most problems with this airline.
American Airlines sure seems like it must be a really horrible company to work for.
Really the only thing I get from this survey is to bring back iSolve. I had a broken tv from Dfw to Icn, very annoying, the FA gave me 20k miles on the spot and suggested I purchase and request reimbursement for WiFi. All that worked for me and saved everyone time on the backend. And it was a pleasant flight otherwise. What exactly is the union asking for here, that AA bring out w...
Really the only thing I get from this survey is to bring back iSolve. I had a broken tv from Dfw to Icn, very annoying, the FA gave me 20k miles on the spot and suggested I purchase and request reimbursement for WiFi. All that worked for me and saved everyone time on the backend. And it was a pleasant flight otherwise. What exactly is the union asking for here, that AA bring out w trainer sme for every service flow change, or that there is a warm body to help with catering? Whenever a service change happens they issue bulletins. I really don’t get the continued frustration following boarding pay and industry leading hourly rates. Literally every employee that works for a company gets a performance review.
Agreed, AA really should just bring back iSolve. me@work is just '1984-style' surveillance without the weekly chocolate rations. However, no amount of hourly or boarding pay fixes a toxic corporate culture that penalizes people for actually trying to help.
Dolly Parton (RIP) really said it best in 9 to 5:
“They let you dream just to watch ’em shatter / You’re just a step on the bossman’s ladder / But you’ve got dreams he’ll never take away / In the same boat with a lot of your friends / Waitin’ for the day your ship’ll come in…”
As frequent fliers, we really should be with the crews on this, not further excusing bad management.
1990 - Honky-Tonk lyrics and moonshine ?
By nature flight attendant unions aren't going to be happy. That doesn't mean they might not have legit gripes. But like going the extra mile for passengers. You do not need a management directive to do that.
It’s both predictable and a real shame to see frequent fliers (at least those who claim to be) attacking the people that literally serve them.
Yeah imagine that. The people on the receiving end judging the people who serve them. What do they know???
David, judge lest ye be judged, much (???) This story is about who is actually responsible for the service quality. Existing AA policies actively penalize workers for taking initiative, so blaming frontline crews instead of management improves nothing for us as consumers.
People are going to make fun of flight attendants and call them lazy or whatever but I wouldn't like my bosses if I worked at AA either. Companies that spend year after year neglecting their customers don't tend to spend time and money on their employees' happiness either
It’s interesting how those same folks who regularly trash crews on here wouldn’t dare say any of that in-person to the people that literally serve them their beloved PDBs, etc.