AA short flight attendants

[Garfield1966]

Art,

We may be a little understaffed but not nearly as much as people think. The major thing that has contributed to all the open time that occurred this holiday was the lack of planning for the end of last month. Everyone realized to late that about 80% or more of the FA’s on reserve at the end of June were FA’s that were going to be laid off. LGA only had 3 reserves that could fly into next month. ORD had 50. That is not nearly enough to run the operation. The result is that when we started to RA at the end of June we ended up pulling a lot of people off their Seq for July. Add the “Holiday Flu†sick calls to the mix

(By the way, the sick list is now over 1300 from 900 June 1. That’s 600 FA’s who are abusing sick time and making you work your asses off)

and you have a disaster. I have a feeling that once we are in Aug things will go back to the way they were prior to Sep 11. Beginning and end of the moth will be a bit rough, Holidays will be a #### because apparently some FA’s and Pilots did not read the part about working weekends and holidays. No Art, we are not staffed for the holidays. We never have been for as long as I have worked here. I get through one holiday and I am already dreading the next. No, we usually do not have supervisors flying but that only accounts for a small handful of trips. Every holiday is one big cluster #### after another. Seq go out min staff. We steal from Peter to pay Paul and then when Peter want his money back we blow him off. I get sick call after sick call and I have no reserves to put on so guess who I look for ……YOU. If your on a trip and your dead heading home or only working a few hours on your last day….I’ll find you and you will fly till you are so pissed that you can’t see straight. Thing is, you’ll be pissed at me… that stupid lazy #### scheduler who has it in for me. Well, next time that thought is going through your mind, think about your colleague who is at home in front of the fire place drinking a margarita. They bombed in last min and you pay the price. I go home at the end of my shift and I will cover the seq any way I can to get the job done. I have never and will never knowing break the contract.

I am sorry if I am sounding bitter but it’s because I am. I have been working since 26 June and will not be off till 10 July. I hate looking for RA’s 8 hours a day and I am sick of people calling in sick. So, sorry but I’m just worn out.

I’m going out for dinner.

 

[IORFA]

Too Bad about the sick calls. With the "NEW" contract, things aren't going to get easier in crew schedule. People have been miss treated sooooo much around here that not too many people have the same work ethic they had when they got hired on. That little problem started with Crandle and has continued ever since. Maybe with this new "pull together, Win together" whatever it was, will force the company to realize that we are only human and expect to be treated as such. I know it won't, but we can be hopeful. Good luck down there on the other planet known as Dallas. ie crew schedule. The world is much different away from Centreport. If you guys thought the 4th of July was bad, wait till XMAS. That just might make your head spin.

 

[Bohica]

A smart, well managed company would have made the furloughs effective July 7th, rather than July 1 for 500-1000 extra people just to have them on reserve over the holiday weekend.

Bohica

 

[Garfield1966]

DELETED

 

[meechy36]

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On 7/7/2003 2:43:57 AM Bohica wrote:


A smart, well managed company would have made the furloughs effective July 7th, rather than July 1 for 500-1000 extra people just to have them on reserve over the holiday weekend.

Bohica

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Yeah, unfortunately we don''t work for Jetblue or Southwest.

AA is cutting their nose off to spite their face. I have a line, if it is delayed for weather or mechanical that is one thing, but to be reassigned because this company didn''t put enough thought into manpower, no thanks, I''ll take the missed trip. You are right about the holidays too, this company doesn''t foster any loyalty, people who wouldn''t have dreamed of calling in sick last year are doing it this year, AA better get used to a disgruntled workforce.

I did a LA turn on the 4th. We were an hour late getting in, took 30 mins to get a van to the hotel, I was so freaked out about getting some sleep that I didn''t get any, that is until I fell asleep on the plane for an hour on the allnighter going home, something I have never done before. By the time I got home I had been up 27 hours except for my little catnap onboard. Yeah, that is gonna keep people healthy, if we don''t get killed driving home or getting suffocated by a slide that we forgot to disarm in our fog. Crew scheduling better get ready for the ride of their lives, with these schedules the sick list is going to look like a holiday weekend all the time.

Mike

 

[mrman]

With flight attendant paycuts, could this be looked at as good news giving one the opportunity to get some overtime.

 

[FA Mikey]

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On 7/8/2003 6:49:05 AM mrman wrote:


With flight attendant paycuts, could this be looked at as good news giving one the opportunity to get some overtime.

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We dont get overtime, time and a half. Most flight attendants trade to work more among themselves or pay a outside service to raise the number of hours they fly. Option 2 open time from the company has been rare for quite some time.

 

[FA Mikey]

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On 7/6/2003 4:44:33 PM Garfield1966 wrote:


(By the way, the sick list is now over 1300 from 900 June 1. Thats 600 FAs who are abusing sick time and making you work your asses off)


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Well, that''s a pretty general assumption. Sorry people don''t get ill on a schedule. Some diseases are contagious and take out many people in a geographic region. Some people may have family leave and are out because of their own or another persons illness. Some people who get sick call in and save the company money by not getting fellow workers sick as well. So its one sick call instead of two or three. I have gotten ill more time from sitting butt to butt shoulder to shoulder to sick flight attendants than from the random bug. But your bitterness and contempt for pilots and flight attendants shows through loud and clear.

 

[FA Mikey]

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On 7/6/2003 4:44:33 PM Garfield1966 wrote:


We may be a little understaffed but not nearly as much as people think. The major thing that has contributed to all the open time that occurred this holiday was the lack of planning for the end of last month. Everyone realized to late that about 80% or more of the FAs on reserve at the end of June were FAs that were going to be laid off. LGA only had 3 reserves that could fly into next month. ORD had 50. That is not nearly enough to run the operation. The result is that when we started to RA at the end of June we ended up pulling a lot of people off their Seq for July. Add the Holiday Flu sick calls to the mix

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Planning never thought for a second that chopping of the bottom of the list, would cut in to the reserve pool. Three reserves in NY and Fifty in ORD for July. But all the problems are from the sick calls. Looks like had you planned accordingly. The increase in sick would have been a dip in the road, Not the major pot hole it became because management dropped the ball.

 

[FA Mikey]

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On 7/6/2003 4:44:33 PM Garfield1966 wrote:

and you have a disaster. I have a feeling that once we are in Aug things will go back to the way they were prior to Sep 11. Beginning and end of the moth will be a bit rough, Holidays will be a #### because apparently some FAs and Pilots did not read the part about working weekends and holidays. No Art, we are not staffed for the holidays. We never have been for as long as I have worked here. I get through one holiday and I am already dreading the next. No, we usually do not have supervisors flying but that only accounts for a small handful of trips. Every holiday is one big cluster #### after another. Seq go out min staff. We steal from Peter to pay Paul and then when Peter want his money back we blow him off. I get sick call after sick call and I have no reserves to put on so guess who I look for YOU. If your on a trip and your dead heading home or only working a few hours on your last day. Ill find you and you will fly till you are so pissed that you cant see straight. Thing is, you''ll be pissed at me that stupid lazy #### scheduler who has it in for me. Well, next time that thought is going through your mind, think about your colleague who is at home in front of the fire place drinking a margarita. They bombed in last min and you pay the price. I go home at the end of my shift and I will cover the seq any way I can to get the job done. I have never and will never knowing break the contract.
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Amazing you don''t plan for historical absences. And then you have the gall to be pissed at us. Sorry Charlie, since companies have been working people on the holidays, people have been calling in. Nothing is going to change that. They have tried requiring DR notes, holiday pay, prize drawings. It happened last Christmas and will happen this one as well.

 

[LaBradford22]

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On 7/8/2003 7:48:45 AM FA Mikey wrote:

Amazing you don''t plan for historical absences. And then you have the gall to be pissed at us. Sorry Charlie, since companies have been working people on the holidays, people have been calling in. Nothing is going to change that. They have tried requiring DR notes, holiday pay, prize drawings. It happened last Christmas and will happen this one as well.

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So, would the solution be to simply close the airline (a la the banks and government offices) on Holidays? Unfortunately, it can''t really work that way. American Airlines runs 24/7/365.

In a perfect world, sick counts on Holidays would be roughly the same as sick counts on other days. Alas, ours is not a perfect world.

It seems it may be in the company''s interest to give some incentive to work Holidays. That might reduce the sick counts on Holidays somewhat. Although it sounds like they''ve tried that before.

 

[buzzkill]

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On 7/8/2003 7:48:45 AM FA Mikey wrote:

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On 7/6/2003 4:44:33 PM Garfield1966 wrote:

and you have a disaster. I have a feeling that once we are in Aug things will go back to the way they were prior to Sep 11. Beginning and end of the moth will be a bit rough, Holidays will be a #### because apparently some FAs and Pilots did not read the part about working weekends and holidays. No Art, we are not staffed for the holidays. We never have been for as long as I have worked here. I get through one holiday and I am already dreading the next. No, we usually do not have supervisors flying but that only accounts for a small handful of trips. Every holiday is one big cluster #### after another. Seq go out min staff. We steal from Peter to pay Paul and then when Peter want his money back we blow him off. I get sick call after sick call and I have no reserves to put on so guess who I look for YOU. If your on a trip and your dead heading home or only working a few hours on your last day. Ill find you and you will fly till you are so pissed that you cant see straight. Thing is, you''ll be pissed at me that stupid lazy #### scheduler who has it in for me. Well, next time that thought is going through your mind, think about your colleague who is at home in front of the fire place drinking a margarita. They bombed in last min and you pay the price. I go home at the end of my shift and I will cover the seq any way I can to get the job done. I have never and will never knowing break the contract.
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Amazing you don''t plan for historical absences. And then you have the gall to be pissed at us. Sorry Charlie, since companies have been working people on the holidays, people have been calling in. Nothing is going to change that. They have tried requiring DR notes, holiday pay, prize drawings. It happened last Christmas and will happen this one as well.




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So are you saying that the company should just accept unethical behavior? Isn''t this the same group that threw a lot of stones at Carty for his unethical behavior, but ignores its own unethical behavior?

 

[LaBradford22]

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On 7/8/2003 945 AM FA Mikey wrote:

To not plan for a known increase in absence in incompetent. I don''t think it should be unilaterally accepted. What else can you do? They have tried everything.

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But, covering for that known increase in absences, which is going to happen only once in the month of July, would likely be very costly for the rest of the month.

So, management is between a rock and a hard place here. They could:

1. Staff up another 600 or so reserve flight attendants to cover the 4th of July weekend. The upside is that the 4th of July weekend is well covered operationally. The downside is that, at month''s end, every one of those reserves is going to get their full guarantee.

Or

2. Don''t staff up to cover the 4th of July weekend and let crew scheduling do its best to cover the trips with the resources they have. The downside is that the 4th of July weekend is chaotic. The upside is that a lot of cost was avoided.

Again, the perfect solution would be to have no questionable use of sick bank time, but human beings are not perfect and flight attendants are, after all, human beings.

 

[buzzkill]

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On 7/8/2003 945 AM FA Mikey wrote:

To not plan for a known increase in absence in incompetent. I don''t think it should be unilaterally accepted. What else can you do? They have tried everything.

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How do you propose planning for such a known increase in unethical absences? Yes, AA could have delayed the furloughs of 500 or so f/a''s to account for the lack of ethics that some f/a''s apparently have, but that probably would have cost another $500,000. If you prefer, AA could keep an extra 500 f/a''s on full-time. If you figure that each f/a costs the company $40,000/year (just guessing here, but this includes salary, benefits, training, etc.), the cost for this decision is $20 Million dollars per year.

The only reason I bother responding to this is that it seems silly to blame anybody except the people who are behaving unethically. You would think that f/a''s would be more interested in canning those who steal from the company than asking the company that the f/a''s just helped to bail out to spend more money on this issue. It also seems that if AA spends extra money to accommodate unethical behavior, it only encourages such behavior.

 

[FA Mikey]

To not plan for a known increase in absence in incompetent. I don''t think it should be unilaterally accepted. What else can you do? They have tried everything.