The flight attendant unions of American Airlines have decided to make love, not war, again.  There is a deal in place for the APFA (Association of Professional Flight Attendants) to represent the flight attendants of the merged airlines of US Airways and American Airlines.  The Association of Flight Attendants (US Airways) is leading its members to the APFA to get a new “industry leading” contract in place.

The AFA (US) gets to have some voice in their destiny in the process.

It’s great that they want to move forward and I have no doubt that working in unity would yield a better outcome than otherwise expected.

But I’m not sure these groups are really going to get along well.  It remains to be seen and I would love to hear from a US Airways flight attendant about their views on working together with the APFA and Laura Glading.

On the one hand, the APFA does very well in marshaling their membership to speak with one voice.  But they do tend to keep talking about 20 years ago and restoring things to the way they once were.

If I were in either union, I would want a union leadership that got me a good deal for today’s conditions in airlines.  And that doesn’t mean a bad deal or a concessionary deal.  It means a deal structured around how the airline industry is working today.  If I were a leader, I would make these my goals:

1. Workplace flexibility:  The ability to work my job, earn my salary at a living wage and still be able to cope with a modern set of challenges in my family.  How about flight scheduling that is a win-win for both the airline (in terms of productivity) and the flight attendant.
2. A salary rate based the hours I work rather than the size of aircraft I fly or the distance I fly.   Re-think how salaries should be paid so that the actual effort expended is in sync with the pay earned.
3. The ability to actually take charge and deliver great customer service to my passengers without fear of retribution for daring to use my mind.
4. Managers who empower rather than punish.  This is very, very important.  Give the flight attendants a chance to show what they can bring to the company and its financial performance.  They might possibly be the most important part to a turnaround.
5. A retirement plan based on a modern model (401K) designed to minimize risk to my retirement but also reward my service time.  AA has some of the best financial managers in the world, ask them to go to work at finding a way for my union to experience real growth in my retirement.

And it’s time to realize for everyone, management, all unions and all other employees are all One Team.

Live by each others efforts and die by each other efforts.  Anyone who wants to go to “us vs them” should be sidelined.  This isn’t about just making the airline successful someday.  This is about making the airline successful as fast as possible and sharing the rewards of that success among all the members of the company.  The faster a real, consistent profit is earned, the faster everyone can start sharing in that.

I would want to get to that point quickly because earning more money in 2015 is a whole lot better than earning more money in 2018.

Filed under: Airline News, Mergers and Bankruptcy by ajax
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