Relations between American Airlines management and flight attendants aren’t good at all at the moment. Flight attendants are seeking a new contract, but are making little progress, and have been refused the right to go on strike.
@xJonNYC now shares the details of a truly bizarre controversy, whereby a company executive reportedly accused a crew of not providing the proper service on a flight he took. However, the crew claims he’s lying.
American SVP accuses flight attendants of not providing service
Brady Byrnes is American’s Senior Vice President of Inflight and Premium Guest Services. He recently flew with his family on a flight from Dallas (DFW) to Denver (DEN). According to the flight attendants who worked the flight, he lied, and reported the crew to the company, claiming they didn’t provide inflight service. According to the crew’s version of events:
- Prior to the flight, the captain told the flight attendants to first stay seated after takeoff due to turbulence, and stated that there would be light turbulence throughout the entire flight
- After takeoff, the captain called the flight attendants to tell them to start the service
- The flight attendants made an announcement, saying that they wouldn’t serve hot beverages, but that they would serve juice, mixers, Coke products, etc.; the crew was reportedly following the light turbulence procedure for onboard service
- When the crew got to Byrnes’ row, he and his family asked for Coke Zero and cranberry juice, and he asked the crew to pour the cranberry juice for his daughters
- After the flight, he reportedly contacted the company, saying that the crew didn’t provide an inflight service; all the crew members received an email early the following morning about this, with the company requesting an explanation
- A crew member concludes, “from what I know and experienced, he lied about us and tried to get us in trouble when we SERVED him and his family”
- A crew member also comments that “he was so nice to our faces and thanked us for our service,” and that “during the flight we talked among ourselves that he seemed so nice, but boy, were we wrong”
@xJonNYC further shares the correct inflight procedure for situations where there’s light turbulence, whereby hot beverages aren’t supposed to be served.
What a bizarre controversy
This is no doubt going to be a big controversy internally at American, though I can’t help but wonder if there might be more to this story, because the circumstances here are so strange. On the one hand, I assume this crew isn’t just completely making this up. On the other hand, I also don’t see what American’s executive who oversees inflight service has to gain by lying about what happened on the flight?
I’m curious if we end up learning more here regarding the circumstances:
- Do the flight attendants know with certainty that Byrnes was the one who complained? Or is it possible that someone else on the flight complained about the lack of service (maybe because they’re not familiar with the service procedure when there’s turbulence), and the crew is just assuming it was Byrnes?
- Was the accusation against the crew really that they just didn’t provide any service, or was it that they didn’t provide the correct service, per the company policies? I don’t see any mention of serving alcohol, so did the crew maybe not serve alcohol, even though they were supposed to?
The crew is making some pretty serious accusations here, outright saying the person who oversees inflight service lied and reported them, so I’m curious what comes of this.
Byrnes has become quite the controversial figure among flight attendants, and in October 2023, the flight attendant union issued a vote of no confidence in him. This became even more controversial when the union hand delivered this message to Byrnes at the company’s headquarters in Fort Worth.
Following this, the company told security at headquarters to be on the lookout for people in union t-shirts, suggesting they were banned from entering the building. However, the company quickly clarified that this was an error.
Then the next big controversy became how Byrnes was wearing Gucci shoes when they delivered the letter to him, so he has gotten the “Gucci” nickname among some flight attendants.
As you can tell, there’s a lot going on here. I don’t know Byrnes personally, so I don’t have a strong opinion on him one way or another. I do have to say that he’s probably in a pretty unenviable situation, overseeing premium service at American (American isn’t trying to be a premium airline!), and also managing an understandably frustrated work group (he’s not responsible for negotiating the contract for flight attendants).
Bottom line
An American executive recently took a flight with his family. The crew claims he was friendly onboard, but then complained internally that the crew didn’t provide any service. The crew claims they provided the standard service for a situation where a flight has light turbulence.
Admittedly labor relations at American aren’t good right now, but this is just incredibly strange. I’d like to think that Byrnes wouldn’t falsely accuse a crew of something for no reason, so I’m curious if there was a misunderstanding here, if we’re not getting the full story, or what…
What do you make of this incident?
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