Since contract negotiations are coming up for United’s flight attendants, the AFA has released a video about their “demands.” I was shocked when I saw that a flight attendant I had an “issue” with was in the video, so imagine my surprise today when I flew with one of the flight attendants in this video without realizing it at first.

I was on the afternoon flight from JFK to LAX and talked with the crew for a while (what can I say, they loved my shirt). I kept telling this one flight attendant that she looked familiar, but I couldn’t pin down when I flew with her. Eventually we were talking about the contract negotiations coming up, and I mentioned the AFA video (yeah, I know, I’m obsessed). At that point one flight attendant said “hey, I’m in that video!” As it turns out it’s the lady 0:26 into the video, which is how I recognized her. She was extremely nice, so I really don’t think she belongs in that video, but oh well. That’s two of the video flight attendants I’ve flown with now, and counting.

I’m speechless on so many levels right now. Check out this 26+ minute video the AFA created as they prepare for contract negotiations. It’s pure entertainment, for the most part.

Let me start by saying this: United’s labor groups deserve favorable contracts this year, and I’m sure they’ll get them. While United isn’t profitable, they got screwed during bankruptcy and deserve some of their benefits/pay back. I have a feeling management will give in to a certain extent in order to avoid a strike, since employee groups wouldn’t hesitate to strike, it seems.

Anyway, just a few observations from the video:

• The guy that I had the run-in with last year is in this video at 0:21, 3:18, 16:23, and 19:30. I nearly fell out of my chair!!! If you happen to fly with this guy, beware! Isn’t it nice to be able to legally expose one of United’s worst employees just by pointing to a union video? If any flight attendants are reading this that may know that guy, please send him my best regards.
• I realize this is the first stage of negotiations, but could the AFA be any less realistic when it comes to their demands? Based on the demands they’re rattling off in the video, it seems they want all employees to be compensated like Glenn Tilton. Pick and choose, AFA, pick and choose. You’re not getting everything!
• I nearly died of laughter starting at around 15 minutes. I’m not sure if they’re trying to point out how some flying experiences are on United or what, but it’s pretty damn funny.
• The lady that starts talking at around 16:35 freaks me the hell out!
• I’ve flown with several of the flight attendants in this video. There are some really good flight attendants among them, believe it or not.

Anyway, I was just so shocked to see that guy in the video. Or actually I’m not surprised he’d choose to participate in the video. Oh, and to clarify, when he says he’s willing to do “whatever it takes,” he means do anything except for treat passengers with basic respect.

“We’re not fighting over a larger piece of the pie. We want a bigger pie.”

I interpret that quote to mean that “we” are working for the success of ”our” organization, because if the organization does well and grows, we grow with it. Who knows, maybe I’m misinterpreting that though, since that was a quote from CAL MEC Chairman Jay Pierce, but it doesn’t sound to me like that’s what he meant.

I was linked to TheLoanIsDue.com a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve gotten a couple hours of quality entertainment out of it since. The videos on the website seem remarkably similar to what I envision TSA training classes being like, but maybe I’m wrong.

Anyway, I found the above quote by Captain Pierce from the June 18, 2008, Smith Street Rally to be interesting, given some of the other things he says earlier in his speech, like:

“We don’t want to kill the golden goose; we just want to choke it until it gives us every last egg.”

“To those that say they want it all and they want it now, I say our turn is coming. Our goose just needs a little bit of fattening up before we wrap our fingers around its throat.”

Now, no matter how you spin it, that’s disgustingly greedy. Even worse, doesn’t that directly contradict the quote above from Captain Pierce? Or maybe I’m just misinterpreting what he was trying to say.

I also love this quote:

“I can’t imagine why management would change the frequent flyer program, further limiting access to BusinessFirst seats for our rest requirements. These are all easy, no cost issues.”

Yeah, I mean I really couldn’t imagine any reason that a frequent flyer program would actually want to release some award seats to their loyal passengers. How peculiar.

Anyway, if you want to be entertained, check out that site.

The Consumerist has an interesting story about a United Airlines passenger that overhead a flight attendant refer to the passengers in coach as “idiots,” in the context of “starting on drinks for the idiots in coach.” A passenger overheard this on Channel 9, through which passengers can listen to air traffic control communications. In this case one of the knobs on the audio panel was set to include communications among the crew on Channel 9, since these communications aren’t typically transmitted over Channel 9.

Anyway, a passenger mentioned overhearing the “idiot” comment to the flight attendant and didn’t receive an apology, and the next thing we know The Consumerist is all over this.

First let me say that it’s rude and unacceptable to refer to your customers as idiots. That being said, this is really being blown out of proportion. I think we can all say that we’ve referred to customers as idiots at our workplaces at one point or another behind their backs. I’ve heard much worse at places I’ve worked at. Maybe some passengers were rude and were causing problems, or maybe the flight attendant was just in a pissy mood. The fact is, we all generalize and let bad words slip once in a while. I’ve also heard flight attendants use much worse words for pilots, although that’s a different story.

The unfortunate part of this story is the end result. The passenger heard this through Channel 9, which is at the discretion of the captain. Many United captains (I’d say north of 50% nowadays) choose to leave Channel 9 off for a variety of reasons. In this case I think it’s no mystery what this particular captain will do on future flights. This situation could have been avoided had Channel 9 not been on, and that’s the sad part.

The only thing I’ll ever say to a captain regarding Channel 9 is “thanks for turning it on,” and there’s good reason for that. Thanks to this passenger and “Nicholas” for ruining it for all of us.

When I heard about United raising their second checked bag fee to $50 this morning, I wasn’t even going to post about it. The fact is that I can’t keep up with the airlines because they keep making these changes and they’re killing us slowly instead of hitting us with all the bad news at once (first charge for the second bag, then the first bag, then raising the costs, etc.). Dan Webb made a good post on the subject this morning, with a very accurate conclusion, especially for non-elites:

Oh well. All I can say is if you are planning to take a couple of bags with you on your next trip, check out all of the fees before you make that booking to determine your final cost. It could change the airline you end up flying.

‘Tis far too true, sadly. Anyway, I’m not necessarily opposed to these bag fees, and it’s not just because I have status with a couple of airlines. That being said, I think we’ll remember this as the “good ‘ole days.” I’m willing to bet we’ll see the fees for the first bag go up to $50+ across the board (maybe with the exception of Southwest and our other emerging premium carriers) and the fee for the second bag to go up to $100+ in the near future. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if they slowly start charging elites, giving them a discount to make them feel like they’re getting a good deal.

Anyway, that’s all fine and dandy. What I really enjoyed was ALPA’s reaction to this. Basically they’re starting a petition against the increased fees. Some may recall that ALPA did the same thing with the meals in international coach, so it seems like they think they were responsible for winning that battle. I feel they’re losing a bit of credibility with this, since there’s no way UA will be reversing this, so it makes these petitions look utterly worthless. Furthermore, I doubt they’ll be getting much support since most passengers that would be savvy enough to visit GlennTilton.com are probably already elites and wouldn’t be as passionate about this as they are about meals on international flights. While UA is charging the most for bags altogether, they aren’t the shocking leader they were with the meal game.

Still, UA has been getting a LOT of bad press lately.

As a flight attendant said today, “I see you’re sporting the old United colors.”

From the Chicago Tribune:

UAL Corp.’s United Airlines plans to cut 1,550 flight attendant jobs, Bloomberg News and Crain’s Chicago Business reported Wednesday.

In a notice to the flight attendants’ union, United said it’s offering voluntary furloughs of six to 21 months starting Oct. 31 and hasn’t announced layoffs.

“As we reduce the size of our fleet and take actions to enable United to compete in an environment of record fuel prices, we must take the difficult, but necessary step to reduce the number of people we have to run our operation,” United said in a prepared statement.

This is very sad news. I’m going to go ahead and wager a guess that most of the AFA furloughs will be voluntary, so nothing all that bad on that end. What really sucks is that the Bangkok and Singapore bases will close on October 31 at the latest. This is indeed extremely sad news. Anyone that has flown with either of these bases would know how exceptionally professional they are, so to see them leaving sucks, simply put.

I can only hope that they’ll reopen the bases eventually, although I’m not too optimistic considering how long the bases lasted this time around.

I know this is old news, but since I’ve been pretty disconnected for the past week other than my daily updates, I figured I’d make a quick post on the subject.

The International Herald Tribune reports:

Frankfurt and Hamburg airports will be the hardest hit on Monday when 52,000 employees of Lufthansa AG go on strike, a union official said Sunday.

All other German airports served by Germany’s biggest airline will also be affected by the massive walkout, Harald Reutter, a Ver.di spokesman, said.

The union, which represents workers of Lufthansa ground crews and service personnel, sought a pay increase of 9.8 percent early this year. The union rejected a Lufthansa offer of 6.7 percent spread through February 2010, plus a one-time bonus payment, and the dispute has not been resolved.

The union and the airline were not in discussions over the weekend.

Ver.di has calculated that the strike will cost Lufthansa €5 million, or $7.8 million, per day, according to Bild newspaper. The strike is scheduled to begin at midnight.

Damn, 52,000, that’s a lot of people! I’m flying Lufthansa next week to Frankfurt and then to Malta, so I’m hoping it’s over by then. Can this really last that long?

This will obviously have a big impact on the operations of other airlines flying into Germany as well. Considering how many airlines contract with LH in one form or another in FRA, this’ll get really messy in my opinion.

As everyone should know by now, I love visiting the UAL ALPA website, both for the entertainment value as well as to see what they’re thinking. They just posted a new “5 Questions With…” interview, which I always enjoy because they’re consistently the most poorly produced and poorly acted out interviews out there (well, perhaps with the exception of this one). This one made me laugh out loud, especially with question five. This captain really gets right to the point!

Here’s something I found interesting. The UA union had a rally this past past week in Woodland Hills, California, and their coverage of it made me chuckle at least a few times.

First of all, you get a version of “Free Falling” just by opening the UA ALPA website, so enjoy that. I actually found it to be somewhat clever…. hey, I said somewhat.

Also some media coverage by a local TV station regarding the rally.

Lastly, and what I found the most, erm, interesting, was the video they made. All I can say is damn, Sara Nelson seems pissed, and I sure don’t want to fly with her (at least based on how she presents herself in that video)! What’s up with her spelling out her name?

Overall I think it’s great that they chose to voice their concerns in ways other than turning off Channel 9 or lackluster service (and that’s definitely far from everyone, but rather a small minority), and appreciate that they consistently referenced providing a better product for customers as well.