One of the things holding back American for a while now is that they had no provision in their pilot contracts for how to staff flights of over 16 hours. I guess back when American last negotiated their contracts they weren’t expecting to have any flying of over 16 hours, though in the meantime this has been a real hindrance for their growth, as it has meant they’re not able to fly routes like Miami to Tokyo, Dallas to Beijing, Chicago/Dallas to Hong Kong, etc.

In theory you’d think pilots would love ultra-longhaul flights. Keep in mind that flights of over 12 hours are staffed by four pilots, and each of them gets to rest for nearly half of the flight. They’re all being paid for the duration of the flight, though spend half of them resting in an international first class seat. Not bad when you’re making $200+ per hour. Furthermore, the more longhaul flying American has, the more growth they experience, the more pilots they need to hire, etc.

So why did pilots refuse to fly longer flights? I suppose because it was a way to “stick it” to management through a technicality in hopes of getting a better contract. While I can certainly understand the frustration among pilots when it comes to upper management, I think they were shooting themselves in the foot by fighting this battle, since they only had things to gain by flying longhaul flights.

Well, it seems they’ve finally reached an agreement. Currently longhaul flights of over 12 hours are staffed by one captain and three first officers. Through the new agreement, ultra-longhaul flights of over 16 hours will be staffed by two captains and two first officers.

This seems like a nice gain for the pilots. Requiring two captains means more pilots will be promoted to captain, and captains get paid considerably more than first officers (at American a senior captain on the 777 makes $205/hour, while a senior first officer on the 777 makes $139/hour). In order words it’ll cost an extra $66/hour to operate the flight, meaning a 16-hour flight would cost an additional ~$1,050 in pay for the pilots.

Now here’s to hoping American finally starts service to Hong Kong!

One hotly contested issue that has been going on behind the scenes with the Continental/United merger is which union will represent the flight attendants of the “combined” United. Previously the IAM (International Association of Machinists) represented Continental’s flight attendants while the AFA (Association of Flight Attendants) represented United’s flight attendants.

Well, the results are in, and it seems that the AFA will be representing flight attendants at the “new” United, having won 55% of the votes. That’s not all that surprising given that “legacy” United had more flight attendants, which translates to more votes.

While it doesn’t have a direct impact on me, I have plenty of friends that are flight attendants, and over the past few months I’ve had quite a few conversations about this with them.

One of the major issues on the line here was how to combine the seniority lists of the two airlines. United’s flight attendants, on the whole, are more senior than Continental’s flight attendants. The logical way to “merge” seniority lists is to do so by hire date. Obviously the AFA is for that, given that they represent flight attendants that are on average more senior. If the list were merged that way, a mid-range seniority United flight attendant would suddenly have a higher relative seniority, while a mid-range seniority Continental flight attendant would have lower relative seniority at the new United.

I can see both sides here. If I’m a flight attendant for United and have 25 years seniority and get to mostly work flights to Asia, there’s no way I want a more junior flight attendant (in absolute terms) at Continental “outbidding” me. At the same time, if I’m a senior Continental flight attendant, it doesn’t seem fair that I have to go from flying almost exclusively internationally to ending up back on domestic flights.

I will say this, though. Based on everything I’ve heard and seen, the AFA has been all about preserving the current United system. The IAM, on the other hand, has been touting that they basically want to “start from scratch” and rebuild the way they think about the profession. That might just be hype or it might be sincere, who knows. The end result, however, has been that Continental’s workforce is much less hostile towards management than United’s (and I don’t know the reason for that, it could be because the union is better, it could be because Continental’s management is better, or it could be a little bit of both).

But here’s where it gets interesting. I have a handful of (legacy) United flight attendant friends that I’ve talked to this about. They’re the “good ones,” or else I wouldn’t be friends with them. I’ve flown with all of them. Without exception, every one of those flight attendants supported the IAM.

Why? The answers ranged anywhere from the potential for better pay, to a less “whiny” union that blames management for everything instead of trying to negotiate with them, to making the airline better for all (and by that they mean looking at reserves too, and not just the more senior flight attendants). The AFA has always had a “whatever it takes” mentality when it comes to negotiating just about anything, yet we’ve seen that it hasn’t gotten them anywhere (United’s flight attendants are paid substantially less than Continental’s), while the IAM has been more about making it work for both parties.

Regardless where you stand on this debate or unions as a whole, let’s hope the integration is smooth and that this doesn’t cause hostility between the two workforces as they’re integrated.

93% of Lufthansa pilots have voted in favor of a strike which would start at midnight on Monday, February 22 and last for four days. The 4,500 unionized pilots seem to want a 6.4% pay increase and job security by Lufthansa avoiding outsourcing pilot jobs to lower paid pilots at regional airlines.

I’m betting the strike won’t happen. If it did, no one wins. Something tells me they’ll find a way to negotiate last minute. Lucky for me I’m only flying Lufthansa in about two weeks.

For once their slogan, “there’s no better way to fly,” may not hold true.

The first time I read through this article, I thought the AFA was complaining that size 18+ flight attendants didn’t want to have to wear the bright, red dresses that Delta rolled out a while back, but it seems that I misread the article. The same organization that encourages flight attendants to work well into their 80′s seems to be saying the opposite: size 18+ flight attendants are offended that they can’t wear the red uniform.

“Red is a color that attracts attention and someone, somewhere has made a decision that they don’t want to attract attention to someone in a dress that’s larger than a size 18,” said Patricia Reller, vice-chair of the grievance committee at the flight attendants union’s executive council at Northwest. “I’m very offended by it.”

I have to admit that I’ve only seen the red uniforms once or twice in the terminal here in Tampa, but I’m not sure what to think. Does it look great on Deltalina? You betcha! Does it look good on some of the more senior, plus sized flight safety professionals that are there primarily for our safety? I’ll have to think that one over….

(And yeah, please don’t take this post too seriously)

Check out this interesting Forbes article which responds to Captain Wallach’s May 23 article about US airline industry jobs being lost due to alliances.

I think Captain Wallach is way off base for the reasons stated in the article by Mr. Swelbar. The only point I agree with Captain Wallach on is the Aer Lingus deal, which I think is an awful idea, but more for business reasons than losing jobs. The fact is that the industry has to become more efficient in order to survive.

(Tip of the hat to reader Paul for sending in the article)