It would appear to me that a few airlines are heading for a second set of problems just as their economic situation is improving a bit.   Several legacy airlines have employed  a strategy of delaying negotiations and keeping the dialogue open without really resolving things among their employees.   American Airlines and United Airlines have been particularly bad at this.

 

Southwest, on the other hand, recognized a need to continue to have settled relationships with its employees and made quality of life as much as pay a big issue.  The same is true of a few other, newer airlines.

 

I really believe that offering better quality of life possibilities is the way to get these conflicts resolved.  Everyone focuses on pay but the issues such as health care, time off, flight benefits and even fatigue are the things that can be resolved to the benefit of both sides and lead to more productivity and less conflict (which leads to distractions in running the business.)

 

Healthcare is a big one.  It’s expensive and among airline crew, very much needed.  While companies see it as expensive, in many respects, it isn’t.  $10,000 worth of healthcare per employee can be worth $20,000 in salary and lead to much better loyalty, happiness and productivity.  While it is difficult to tie this to direct savings elsewhere, there is no doubt in my mind that relieving employees of this worry would lead to much better labor relations.

 

Think about how tired *you* are after flying just one long trip in a day.  Imagine how it must feel if you’re “working” 2 or 3 trips in one day.

 

Time off is important too.  All too often, airline crew are seen as having lots of time off because of their schedules.  What isn’t often observed is just how much recovery is required after flying 2, 3 or even 4 very long days in a row.  It takes a few days to recover from the kind of grueling schedules that are required to stay profitable.   Restructuring trips so that employees can maximize their pay while working and, at the same time, have enough time off to recover and be ready for their next set of trips will lead to better quality of life. 

 

Flight perks are a very demoralizing area for many airline employees now.  Yes, they get to fly free . . . when there is space available and, let’s face it, there isn’t much space available these days.  That makes people feel as if those perks’ value has been greatly diminished and, in many respects, it has.  Airlines would be better off to scrap unlimited “free” travel and, instead, offer a limited set of guaranteed positive space benefits.   There would be a great deal more value in the employee being able to count on being able to use those benefits *when* they wanted to use them as opposed to having to live in a state of uncertainty as to their plans.  Modest guarantees have much more value than unlimited perks dependent upon space  being available.

 

Why not allow an airline employee accrue a guaranteed space ticket much like most of us accrue vacation time?  Work so many flight hours, get a guaranteed space ticket.  Let them carry the benefit on the books as long as they like so they might “earn” enough benefits to take their family someplace.   Award them a business class seat at various anniversaries but not at 5, 10, 15 and so on years.  Do it every 3 years of service. 

 

Pay is important and its time for airlines to start looking for a different way to pay their crew.  The pay for most airlines has become too complex and, frankly, rewards seniority far more than the work provided.  30 years ago, flight attendants weren’t expected to make a 30 or 40 year career out of flying.  They generally flew as much as 10 or even 15 years and then quit.   That allowed a great deal of turnover in seniority that became arrested in the late 1970’s. 

 

The truth is, a senior flight attendant for a legacy airline (and by senior I mean 20+ years) is generally able to hold schedule in a city he or she wants to be domiciled in and fly a relatively easy schedule while making a good salary. 

 

By easy, I mean that flight attendant might fly one or two legs a day, maybe spend one night away from home and fly another one or two legs before being off for 3 or 4 days.  A junior flight attendant may be flying 3 to 5 legs a day, staying away from home as much as 3 or 4 nights and have just 1 or 2 days off before doing it again to earn a salary that, frankly, isn’t very much a living wage.

 

Pay and productivity aren’t matched very well.  Airlines need to pay not by the mile and size of aircraft but, rather, by something like the number of legs they fly in a day and the number of nights away from home they endure.   Airlines want more productivity but there is a disconnect from that with the current seniority system. 

 

Keep the seniority systems for allowing a flight attendant to choose their schedule.  But make the pay for a grueling schedule rewarding and the pay for a light schedule less rewarding.  You’ll find senior flight attendants taking on the hard, difficult trips to earn that pay and you’ll find them doing a great job of handling it by virtue of their experience *and* their reward for hard work.

 

Most of all, take care of your employees.  Make it easy for them to get something to eat and drink between trips.  Make it easy for the gate agent to have a brief respite between serving 2 flights.   Find ways to allow more cross-functionality between jobs at the airline so that employees want to help each other get through the day faster and happier as opposed to protecting their jobs. 

 

I don’t see airlines like American and United trying to take care of their employees.  I see them looking at their employee base with contempt and hostility.  After 30 years of this, it’s time for everyone to take a breath and work out something that works for both sides. 

 

If this isn’t done, legacy airlines will find themselves being held hostage via strikes just as their situations have improved.  The worst thing you can do is to starve a person and then when you have all the food, fight them for it.  At that point, the starving person has nothing to lose by fighting and everything to gain.

Filed under: Airline Service by ajax