American Flight Attendants Furious Over Mandatory Credit Card Training

American Airlines’ flight attendants are being forced to undergo a training course on how to sell credit cards, and the union isn’t happy about this, claiming that the company is trying to redefine their jobs. Does the union have a point, or are they overreacting?

Union accuses American of “redefining” jobs with credit card training

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), which represents American’s more than 30,000 flight attendants, has issued an interesting memo, as reported by PYOK. As anyone who has been following the airline industry know, the major US carriers earn a large percentage of their profits (or at least reduce their losses) through their loyalty programs, which are extremely lucrative.

On American, we’ve long seen flight attendants have the opportunity to promote credit cards onboard, and they can earn a commission if their “sales” lead to successful applications. American is trying to improve its financial performance, and as part of that, the airline is trying to encourage flight attendants to be more consistent about onboard credit card pitches.

As part of this, the airline is now making it mandatory for flight attendants to complete an online training module about credit card sales. Failure to complete this module could lead to dismissal. So the issue here is that being trained on credit cards is no longer voluntary, but instead, is required. Still, actually promoting credit cards onboard isn’t required, but is up to the individual flight attendants.

The union is claiming this new training module violates the collective bargaining agreement with management, claiming “our Scope is one of our most important protections,” and “it is what prevents management from redefining what a Flight Attendant is and what they can be required to do on a whim.”

American is also rolling out a new flight attendant scoring system, which will be known as Me@Work. One of the factors intended to be displayed here will be the number of successful credit card applications attributed to each flight attendant.

Is American management right, or does the union have a point?

The union is of course within its rights to try to challenge anything that’s beyond the scope of the collective bargaining agreement. However, does this really fit into that category? Here’s how I see it:

• Management isn’t forcing any flight attendant to try to promote or sell credit cards, as that’s entirely voluntary
• American is just forcing flight attendants to be trained on what they need to do in the event that they do want to try to promote credit cards, and presumably also make them aware of the upside of promoting credit cards
• Historically one of the issues with flight attendant credit card pitches is that they’ve been highly inaccurate, and many flight attendants have taken quite some liberties; the credit card industry has a ton of rules around how products can and can’t be promoted, and that should extend to airline representatives promoting credit cards as well

Based on my understanding of the situation, I think the union is overreacting here. I would understand the frustration if flight attendants were being forced to promote credit cards, but simply requiring training on something that many flight attendants do choose to participate in doesn’t strike me as being unreasonable. But that’s just me.

I get the argument of “if they require this, then what else could they require in the future?” But let’s be honest, this is literally a massive part of the airline business model nowadays, and if it weren’t for AAdvantage, odds are that American would’ve lost money in recent years.

Bottom line

American flight attendants are being required to undergo training for promoting credit cards. This training is mandatory, regardless of whether or not flight attendants intend to actually promote credit cards (which they earn a commission for).

The union argues that this is beyond the scope of the collective bargaining agreement, and that management is crossing a line. Meanwhile I’d imagine the argument from management would be that flight attendants aren’t being forced to promote credit cards, they just have to be trained on it, so that in the event they do choose to promote credit cards, they understand the rules.

What do you make of this complaint from the American flight attendant union?