2009 Flight Attendant Attrition

[jimntx]

Back by popular demand (well, one person asked anyway). Here are the monthly and YTD attrition numbers for flight attendants. These numbers include everything-quit, died, retired, got fired. The retiree number is a subset of the total of domestic and International. Again, the retiree number will almost never match the number of retiree names on the retirement roster on the Flight Service home page. Names of retirees can not be published without the retiree's permission; so, the number shown here will usually be greater than the number of names on the roster for a given month. Another thing I have noticed about the "official" retiree numbers: sometimes they are less than the number of names on the roster. However, they seem to count some people in one month for the attrition summary, but then put a different retirement month in the roster?????? Over the year it seems to balance out.

Here are the first two months. Again, remember the company only publishes year-to-date figures so each month, I subtract the previous month's totals from the current totals to determine the current month attrition. Also, remember these are always almost a month behind. January numbers are not posted by the company until mid-February, and so on.

January, 2009:
Dom...........18
Intl.............17
Total...........35
Retirees......16

February, 2009: Year-to-date:
Dom...........24------------42
Intl.............15------------32
Total...........39------------74
Retirees......12------------28

The average monthly attrition is down from last year and down substantially for previous years. So far, this year the average monthly attrition is 37. 2008, it was 75. 2007, it was 102. 2006, it was 156. The state of the economy, as Art Tang noted in another thread has people changing their minds about retiring.

 

[ArtTang]

Thanks Jim....good information, as usual.

Art

 

[jimntx]

March didn't exactly shrink the seniority list either.

March, 2009: Year-to-date:
Dom...........14------------56
Intl.............11------------43
Total...........25------------99
Retirees......11------------39

The average monthly attrition is down from last month to this month. It is now 33/month total. That's all reasons for leaving including retirement. Note that we have an average of only 13 f/as per month retiring. That has to be a new low.

 

[Flyboy4u]

March didn't exactly shrink the seniority list either.

March, 2009: Year-to-date:
Dom...........14------------56
Intl.............11------------43
Total...........25------------99
Retirees......11------------39

The average monthly attrition is down from last month to this month. It is now 33/month total. That's all reasons for leaving including retirement. Note that we have an average of only 13 f/as per month retiring. That has to be a new low.

Thank you Jim for all of your factual information...You do really provide the true facts on these message boards instead of a few who make them up in order to make themselves look impressive, and knowledgeable...Again, thank you!

 

[ArtTang]

Thanks for the information, Jim. Retirements sure seem to have slowed to a trickle, that's for sure. Little surprise given the economy and the massive losses in people's retirement savings.

 

[kirkpatrick]

Thanks for the information, Jim. Retirements sure seem to have slowed to a trickle, that's for sure. Little surprise given the economy and the massive losses in people's retirement savings.

Actually, Art, I think there's a more logical reason retirements have slowed. The VBR's offered last summer attracted 368 takers. Anyone who was going to retire in the next new months certainly jumped at the chance to up the ante by 15k. Retirements have traditionally only accounted for about half of attrition, anyway.

It will take a while, but I think retirements will inch back up to former levels, especially as a larger and larger percentage of the work force becomes eligible.

MK

 

[jimntx]

Well, I can't think of anything more logical than "Thanks to the stock market collapse, I can't afford to retire." However, there are thousands of f/as who have both the age and the years to retire tomorrow (only HR knows for sure since all of us were hired at wildly different ages). How many more need to "become eligible" before retirements will "pick up" again?

Past history can not be used as a measure. We have never had this "old and experienced" a flight attendant corps before now. Retirements should be at a record high compared to the past if we only go by who is eligible. With a younger workforce--like MacDonald's--one would expect attrition by retirement to be lower because few are eligible. That does not apply to the flight attendant corps at AA.

Less than a third of the active f/a corps are below top of scale in pay. Using the seniority list updated in Oct, 2008...
1. 8988 have (or will have by the end of this year) 20 years of service. That's 53% of the active corps.
2. 4036 have 25 years.
3. 2619 have 30 or more years.

And, don't forget that a number of those who have less than 10 years as flight attendants are eligible to retire because they have more than enough years in company seniority because they worked in other areas of the company (AMR) before becoming flight attendants. I have one friend who became a f/a about the same time I did in 2000, but she was a gate agent for many years prior to joining the glamorous part of the operation. She could have retired when we were furloughed in 2003, but chose not to.

 

[FWAAA]

The reluctance of senior FAs to retire is evidence that the pay, while down from pre-2003 levels, is still attractive enough to help retain people who apparently have nothing better to do than play flight attendant even at their advanced age. They liked doing it when they were 20 and they insist on still doing it at 65 (or 70).

You know what the evil company concludes from such behaviour? FA pay could be whacked again and there'd still be plenty of takers. There are many young people who would love to become FAs and fly all over the world except the legacies aren't hiring. There are older people who'd like to play FA for a few years (like jimntx) but the legacies aren't hiring.

A couple of years ago, the stock market was booming and the FA retirement pay (based on the best x number of years of the past y number of years) should have prompted a mass exodus among the senior FAs. Yet still they stayed. Now the market is in the toilet and the retirement pay formula has to be peaking (if it didn't peak last year). Stay much longer and your retirement pay will be smaller than if you'd retired in 2009-10. What's going to motivate anyone to retire once they find their retirement checks are smaller than if they'd retired earlier? The faint hope that FA pay will rise sharply? Yeah, that's likely to happen.

Last summer, 368 were motivated by the VBR - and I'd guess that Kirkpatrick is right about the VBR probably causing a slight slowing of the recent retirements. With smaller retirement pay in the cards for most of those remaining, I don't see anything to motivate them to retire going forward.

 

[IORFA]

The retirement pay isn't that much different now than it was 2 or 3 years ago. It might even be higher according to APFA. Reason is that if people were still working, they now have more years of service to use in the multiplier. So it is entirely possible that peoples retirement checks could be bigger or atleast the same as it would have been 2 or 3 years ago. NOW, had they left 2 or 3 years ago, their checks might have been very similar as today, but they would have been home enjoying life instead of trudging to work month after month. To each their own. I would prefer to be home doing something else, but a large number of people don't have the same feelings I do.

 

[jersey777]

I love this whole "play flight attendant" bit. How much more condescending can you be? I'll tell you why senior flight attendant don't retire...because it is a very enjoyable career. Would you answer this want ad?


WANTED. Older then 55. Work with your peers. Fly 8-12 days a month flying all over the world. Full medical benefits. 4 weeks vacation. First choice of schedule. Holidays off. Make around $45,000 per year. Oh...and on your days off, you can fly free.
Sounds alot better then retiring and getting a job at Home Depot.


Btw...FWAAA...what "crucial" job do you do that you feel so above the working people of this country?

 

[HottootrotNyc]

I love this whole "play flight attendant" bit. How much more condescending can you be? I'll tell you why senior flight attendant don't retire...because it is a very enjoyable career. Would you answer this want ad?


WANTED. Older then 55. Work with your peers. Fly 8-12 days a month flying all over the world. Full medical benefits. 4 weeks vacation. First choice of schedule. Holidays off. Make around $45,000 per year. Oh...and on your days off, you can fly free.
Sounds alot better then retiring and getting a job at Home Depot.


Btw...FWAAA...what "crucial" job do you do that you feel so above the working people of this country?

Very well put! Who (deleted by moderator) really wants to retire from being a f/a? When you get to being "Senior" and making top pay, I think in a lot of ways you get to enjoy the job in a different way. You don't have to worry about money, you get the best schedules, and don't have to fly more then what your actual line is, you have almost the entire month off and still make a boat load of money and keep a VERY active life.

UAL's #1 retired I think 2 years ago at 86 and only because she finally could no longer physically do the job. NWA's #1 is in his 80's, collects top pay, social security, and I am pretty sure once you hit a certain age you can collect off of your pension, even if you are still actively flying. Our #1 at CAL is 72 and has been flying for 52 year's. She is in great health, makes six figures and only works 12 days a month. Hell! I don't know if I could give up all that money since I love it so much and after 10 years of flying, love it as much as day one... But that's me....

 

[ArtTang]

"[. . .] you have almost the entire month off and still make a boat load of money [. . .]."

Don't get me wrong...I still like this job after 24 years (still love going to different cities every week, still enjoy meeting people from all over the world, still enjoy the variety in schedules, etc). But I don't think anyone is making a 'boat load' of money just flying schedule. Most people are flying 100 hours (or more) a month at AA just to make $55,000 a year...hardly a boat load of money.

 

[Skymess]

The reluctance of senior FAs to retire is evidence that the pay, while down from pre-2003 levels, is still attractive enough to help retain people who apparently have nothing better to do than play flight attendant even at their advanced age. They liked doing it when they were 20 and they insist on still doing it at 65 (or 70).

You know what the evil company concludes from such behaviour? FA pay could be whacked again and there'd still be plenty of takers. There are many young people who would love to become FAs and fly all over the world except the legacies aren't hiring. There are older people who'd like to play FA for a few years (like jimntx) but the legacies aren't hiring.

You lost all credibility with your 'play' flight attendant nonsense.

Younger people would love to become flight attendants but they can't because the older people who love it, and do it better than most of our younger people, still love it and are still doing it. It's a prevalent stereotype that the senior people are old, fat, bitter, and nasty. Most of our older flight attendants are still beautiful, happy, in good shape, and the most professional ones that we have.

People want to do this job because it is more than a job and more than play time.

I see you on this board and the other board all the time and mistakenly came to the conclusion that you had the same passion for the industry that we do. I guess your passion runs more to number crunching over what really makes this industry fly, kind of like our management team.

The only reason many people are retiring is not because they got tired of playing flight attendant, it is because management keeps crushing the enjoyment out of it for EVERYONE, including the passengers.

 

[FA Mikey]

To say "play flight attendant" for a couple years is hardly a slam or an insult. Doing a job for a year or two is just that. It would be foolish for anyone to come out of school these days and want to establish this as your career. As more and more people are finding out the hard way.

 

[eolesen]

Some of you completely miss the irony --- if the pay and working conditions suck as much as you and others make it out to be, then how do so many stick around to do it?

Go look up what the word "play" means -- I don't see the comment as an insult at all, but a pretty accurate reflection of what I see flying on AA.

For all the pissing and moaning here, FA's of all seniority levels actually seem to enjoy what they do, some to the extent it isn't work to them.

I don't mind coming into the office, or spending a week or two on the road. It's fun. It's enjoyable. After 10 years of doing what I do, I still don't feel like I'm shuffling off, head hung low, to go punch a timeclock like in the opening titles of "Joe vs. the Volcano"...

One of the problems I see here is that too many of you forget about what type of satisfaction you really get from of your time on the clock. I doubt it is nearly as bad as the complaining you do here on your time off...