United Airlines is threatening to fire its flight attendants who try to profit off of extended flight delays, by triggering pay protection, as flagged by PYOK. While this of course doesn’t directly impact passengers, I find this to be sort of fascinating, and I’m curious just how widespread of an issue this is…
In this post:
United warns flight attendants about “gaming” delays
United has reportedly sent a memo to its 28,000+ flight attendants, warning them of an “impermissible and fraudulent” practice that the company has been noticing, which could trigger termination.
For a bit of background, let me explain the concept of this. Flight attendants have minimum rest periods between flights and trips, which are determined based on both federal regulations and contractual negotiations.
If a flight attendant is working a trip that ends up being seriously delayed, and that prevents them from working the next trip they bid on, they have pay protection. The idea is that they still get paid for that trip, even though they’re not able to work it, because them missing that trip is outside of their control.
But it would appear that some flight attendants have gotten a bit sneaky and entrepreneurial on this front. As we all know, sometimes there are rolling delays, where the departure time keeps getting pushed back. This can be due to air traffic control restrictions, maintenance issues, waiting on a pilot, etc.
United management is essentially accusing some flight attendants of bidding on future trips during rolling delays, with the idea being that they’re doing so without the intent of actually working them, based on an anticipated delay. Per United’s internal memo:
“As United employees, we often have information about delays or cancellations available to us before our systems are updated and before that information is available to our customers. Using that information for a financial benefit is an impermissible trade practice.”
“You must have the intent and ability to operate the trip being picked up or traded into. This principle has been affirmed in multiple arbitration cases. Violating it can result in discipline or termination.”
If that sounds confusing, let me give an example. Say a flight attendant has a minimum rest period of 12 hours between trips. Say they’re working a flight to their base and are finishing their trip, but there’s a rolling maintenance delay.
The idea is that a flight attendant then picks up a trip 12.5 hours after they’re anticipated to return to base, and as long as there’s an additional 30 minute delay, they wouldn’t be allowed to work that trip, but would still get paid for it.
I’m curious how common of an issue this is
Hey, from United’s perspective, this memo is fair enough. Obviously the airline doesn’t want people intentionally bidding on trips that they won’t be able to work, with the sole intent of triggering the pay protection clause in their contract. Now, two things come to mind…
First, I’m curious just how widespread of an issue this is. I mean, you sort of need the perfect storm of a situation (in terms of intent, the flow of a delay, the available trips to pick up, etc.) for this to work. You’d assume this isn’t at all common, but who knows.
Second, United is great with tech, and frankly I’m surprised the airline isn’t able to update its system to prevent this kind of stuff. You’d think United’s internal system would have most of the information about rolling delays, and that could be used to prevent trading onto trips that are at risk of not working out.
Bottom line
United is accusing some flight attendants of engaging in “impermissible and fraudulent” practices during rolling delays. The idea is that flight attendants bid on trips during delays, with the goal of a rolling delay causing them to not be able to work that trip, while still triggering pay protection.
I can understand why the company would take issue with this practice, and try to prevent this. I’m just a bit surprised that this is at all a common practice, since it requires the “perfect storm” of circumstances.
What do you make of this alleged United flight attendant scheme?
“gotten a bit sneaky and entrepreneurial” … nice euphemism. If it were corporate doing this against workers, they’d say, ‘it’s just business.’ (Yet, when workers or consumers find the ‘arbitrage,’ obviously …bad. /s)
Depends whether this is actually breaking a real rule, or just goes against the ‘spirit’ of the rules, but not literally violating them.