I get a lot of email pitches, and most of them are actively uninteresting to me. "Ben: new data about millennial basketweaving trends in Namibia." That'll be a no from me. But earlier I received an email with the subject line: "Labor dispute amid Polaris…
A few days ago I posted about how a computer glitch at American caused 15,000 flights over the holidays to be scheduled without pilots. This impacted flights between December 17 and 31, 2017, where apparently pilots were able to “trade” off holiday trips,…
Well, this is a pretty major glitch. The Allied Pilots Association (APA) is the union representing American's pilots, and they've just revealed a major issue that management reported to them. Apparently due to a computer glitch, virtually all pilots…
Since June this year, British Airways’ mixed fleet crew have been on strike. Thankfully, the impact hasn’t been as large as when it happens at Lufthansa or Air France. In fact, for passengers the experience has been quite positive. Many intra-European…
We've seen a lot of hypocrisy from U.S. airlines when it comes to their condemnation of the Gulf carriers. For example, the lobbying group of the major U.S. legacy airlines shamed the U.S. Travel Association for working with the Gulf carriers, when one…
British Airways has a few different flight attendant contracts. One of those contracts is for their "mixed fleet" crews, which are their relatively newly hired flight attendants. As you may remember a few years back, British Airways flight attendants…
In September American Airlines rolled out new uniforms for their 70,000+ employees. While uniforms in and of themselves won’t change the customer experience, symbolically they represented the “new American” becoming one, since previously American and…
Roughly 82% of Delta's 13,000 pilots have voted in favor of a new contract, which will see them getting a pay raise of over 30% over four years. Pilots had voted down an earlier contract, so while this one will be costly for the airline, at least they…
Today Lufthansa's pilots are striking for the sixth day since last week, which has led to about 4,500 flights being canceled, and over 500,000 passengers being inconvenienced. Up until now there has been no end in sight for the strike, as the pilots…
This past week has been a rough one for Lufthansa, as their pilots went on strike for four days (on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), causing hundreds of thousands of passengers to have their travels disrupted. The pilots have been unwilling…
Well, it looks like no end is in sight for Lufthansa's pilot strike. Initially Lufthansa's pilots union announced a one day strike, which was supposed to take place on Wednesday. Then it was extended until Thursday. Then the union announced a strike…
Lufthansa's pilots have been on strike for the past two days (and really for the past several years of their careers, it feels like). Initially the strike was just supposed to be on Wednesday, but then they extended it through Thursday. This strike impacted…
Yesterday I wrote about how Lufthansa's pilots were going on their bajillionth strike, causing nearly 1,000 flights and 100,000 passengers to be impacted. The strike is active today, lasting from 12:01AM to 11:59PM, with a majority of Lufthansa flights…
It's a day ending in "y," which means a European airline will go on strike tomorrow. In this case it's Lufthansa's pilot union that's striking, from 12:01AM to 11:59PM on Wednesday, November 23, 2016. This strike will cause ~900 Lufthansa flights tomorrow…
Cathay Pacific has foreign flight attendant bases, including some in the U.S. Actually, they're the only Asian airline I know of to have U.S. based flight attendants. I've flown with Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco based Cathay Pacific crews.…
While the merger between Continental and United was closed in 2010, up until now the ex-United and ex-Continental flight attendants have still been on different contracts. This means that they've had separate pay scales, different work rules, different…
It's a day that ends in "y," which means European aviation is experiencing a major strike. This time around it's the Air France cabin crew on strike, and it's expected to last a week. The dispute is over their new contract, which is supposed to kick…
It looks like I flew China Airlines just in time, as their flight attendants are going on strike for the first time ever on Friday. According to airlineroute.net, all China Airlines flights departing Taipei between 6AM and 10PM on Friday, June 24, 2016,…
The horribly tragic Brussels terror attacks happened on March 22, which caused Brussels Airport to close for well over a week. A part of the check-in hall was blown up and many people lost their lives, so they had to shut down the airport while they…
It should come as no surprise that the airline industry is full of disagreements between airline management and their respective employee unions. What might come as more of a surprise is the contention between various unions within an airline. Even after…
While I understand the purpose of unions, I've never understood how repeated strikes end up happening so often. I'm not just blaming unionized employees, but also management -- at some point there has to be some compromise which is less punitive than…
