Attendants Asked For $116 Million

[crazyincanton]

That is the dollar amount that was presented to AFA is overall savings that would be achieved eg. International Division wall comes down etc...

I find it hard to think that the personal amount of $21,000.00 is for each active F/A. My advice wait until you get a comunnication from AFA with the facts please and don't assume anything until it is presented from the union. Remember when in doubt always call your LEC.

Sounds to me like your assuming,eg. int'l walls coming down,etc. Take your own advice, I don't need it.

 

[Light Years]

But what are they actually asking for? International wall gone (is it a wall or a fence? either way its dumb) What else? Work rules, ok, but which ones and what do they want to change them to?

How come every time they want concessions or have a plan they dont tell you what they are?

Its like a burgler coming into your house and pointing a gun at you and saying "Give me it!" Um, ok, are you talking about my child or the ashtray on the coffee table? Be specific please, because the results depend on what you are actually asking for.

 

[PhillyFlyGuy]

Nobody but the AFA knows what the company is looking/asking for.

The only thing that we know is that it is worth 116 million.

I was just throwing out an example of where the company may put a dollar amount on something by changing the work rules.

 

[pitguy]

$116 million divided 5500 f/a's is equal to over $21,000 per f/a. This is just absurd. I don't care what combination of work rules, bennies, and wages that you use, this is just not doable. And for everyone who wants to say that it's this or no job, they are wrong. With this kind of cut I could make this money anywhere. If I give to "save the company" then I sink myself and my family. My home will be paid off in less than 5 years, my cars are paid off, I don't have any consumer debt, and I don't have any loans. But this cut would destroy everything. It is such a huge number that it looks to me like the co. wants us to vote it down. What galls me is that they think we are so pathetic and a bunch of losers that we'll accept anything. There isn't any respect for any of us. Let it sink.

Excellent post. I too have very little debt and will not put my families future in harms way. I will vote NO for any cuts, but then again I won't have to since the IAM has stated the concession stand is closed. Let's see if they keep their word or if they to are liars.

 

[tug_slug]

This could be the beginning of a new approach

Or the beginning of the end <shrug>

 

[Light Years]

Bob, that 100 hours is FLIGHT TIME. Not the hour plus check in before trips, boarding and deplaning of aircraft, crew briefings, meetings with supervisors, retrieving and updating paperwork, or company scheduled sit time in airports and hotels.

A trip could keep you away from home and on company time for 70 hours and you are only paid for 15-20 hours. The rest of the time you are making a little over 1 dollar an hour in per diem.

If scheduling doesnt use you you are paid for seventy odd hours to be available to the company at an hours notice for roughly 20 days a month. Not many employers would hire an employee that may have to leave on a hours notice for an undetermined amount of days, so there goes the second job.

Its understood that "flight time hours" are not the equivalent of work hours. If you calculate it in work hours, flight attendants can work up to 14 hours straight in a single day, which might result in 3 or 5 or 7 hours depending on how much of that time is spent behind a closed aircraft door.

Ktflyhome did a calculation a while ago dividing flight attendant schedules into regular "work hours". An Express flight attendant was making the equivalent of $5.19 an hour for a 64 hour work week.

And who is this flight attendant that works FOURTEEN DAYS a month! As in 16, 17 days off?!? Are you kidding me? Maybe on transatlantic, holding a block (at least 20 years seniority).

Some months I'd get five nights in my own bed at my own home (all interuppted, by the way, by calls from work). How on earth is being a flight attendant a part time job? :blink:

 

[Fly]

That is the dumbest post I've ever read from you. 100 hour months mean you would be HOME maybe, MAYBE 2 days a week. You need to see how the trips are paid before posting something so stupid.( I have three day trips, 13 hour days, for 15 hours pay, total, and that's the norm) OK, I understand that everyone else only has 2 days off a week too BUT they go home to their family every night.....we don't. We could possibly only see our familys 1 or 2 days per week for the "part time job". This post just proved that you have NO CLUE about the job. <_<

 

[tug_slug]

Bob the one thing your not adding in that equation is their commute time. Granted their not actually working but is time away from home, time their not being compansated for. Something that people like you and I who work a standard 40 hour work week seem to forget.
IMO the Flight Attendants are under compensated for what they do then again thats only my opinion and you know what everyone says about opinion's...
Its getting late and Im getting tired.
Have a good evening Bob

 

[Winglet]

On top of the P.B., what kind of a salary is $41k in a place like NYC or Queens? I'd say it STINKS. Try living off $41k on Long Island.

 

[Pylit]

I'd like to add my two cents.
The issue of how many hours we work versus how many pay hours we get are vastly different.
As an 85 hour blockholder, I put in between 160-170 (sometimes more) hours of "on duty" time every month. This does not include drive time to the airport or even the overnights, this is duty time between 1 hour before my first pushback and 15 minutes after my last block-in for the day.
This effectively puts my hourly rate at one-half of any of the quoted 'rates' of pay that are being bandied about in the press or in chat rooms.
This is the figure that every one of us should have in the back of your head when you compare your job and it's rate of compensation with something in the 'civilian' world.
Believe me, we don't make as much as most people think, and it isn't purchasing as much as it used to (but that's a whole other story...)

 

[Walmartgreeter]

Depending on how you work the numbers being a flight attendent is a part time job that pays full time wages.

Standard 40 hour work week x 52 weeks = 2080 hours.
F/A flys 100 hours per month x 12 month = 1200 hours.

or 57% of the "standard" year. Do the math another way.

261 standard business days per year = 261
14 days a month flying a 12 = 168

or 64 % or a combined average of just under 61% of hours worked compared to the standard work week as defined bt the American labor movement.

I had honestly thought over the last few months that you actually had a clue. Reference this post, you do not. You should be ashamed. ANYBODY actually working in this industry is probably shocked by your figures. Again..not a clue! Greeter (for the second time in a year, I really think you might be mangement plant...how could you even post this!?)

 

[airbiiguy]

piney is full of it. they truly have no clue how an F/A or line pilot lives. They get paid for 85 hours sure but they are on duty double that!!

 

[Fly]

More than double that. Piney, over and out

 

[Light Years]

On top of the P.B., what kind of a salary is $41k in a place like NYC or Queens? I'd say it STINKS. Try living off $41k on Long Island.

And again, the 41k is the average pay of a topped-out flight attendant. By its own fault, MOST of US Airways flight attendants are topped out.

If the company was growing, this would be offest by junior employees coming in all the time at lower pay and higher productivity. This cycle continues and those employees become senior and enjoy better compensation and quality of life as a new generation comes in. This system works- see Southwest. You may ask, why cant everyone work evenly and be paid evenly regarless of seniority? The truth is the very lifestyle of a crewmember in thier first few years simply cant be long term for anyone regarless of thier age- the unpredicatability, the lack of a family or social life outside of the airline, crazy living situations, and physical and mental exhaustion would be extremely unhealthy. So the most fair way to do things is to pay your dues and earn seniority- one day you too will earn some semblance of a normal life to go with your airline life.

What has happened at Airways is that the system has stopped. Instead of growth there is shrinkage. Aside from the voluntary furlough program, the company has expressed no interest in working with the senior half on incentives to leave, nor have they expressed any interest in bringing back junior people. Instead they have furloughed exactly half of the workforce- the junior half. The conditions remain the same, with the most junior active employee working under those crazy new hire conditions, and the more senior enjoying more flexibilty and choice. However, the pay scale remains the same- 20 years is still 20 and 5 years is still 5 in terms of pay. This is where you see the conflict- US employees post-concessions make less than thier competition, same seniority counterpart (even WN), but the competitors costs are lower because they have a range of pay scales on the property rather than just the high end like US has.

Just throwing numbers out there (I dont have the exact figures, these are examples), but say with the current 5000, senior end flight attendants, the average pay was 40k (and again, its most certainly not even that high). If you had the entire 11,000 on the property (most of whom were under 5 years, at 20k-25k) your average would come down to the 20s. If you traded the active 5000 for the inactive 5000, the average would be the low 20s. However, you'd run into the same problem again once they get senior. The system was designed as a scale, and it has to be moving on one end or the other- if it stays static, your costs only rise.

This reminds me of when the US F/As were in contract talks in 2000 and that Katie Couric a*****e on the television had the nerve to ask why the flight attendants felt they deserved so much money.I think her comment was along the lines of "I dont know any waitresses that make $50 an hour". Well you know what Katie? I dont know anyone who makes a million dollars to get up early and talk about crap/smile/talk to a weatherman/get a colonostrophy. People like to throw around the high figures without understanding how pay works and how little flight attendants, and ESPECIALLY pilots make for YEARS.

 

[ktflyhome]

In my opinion, Piney Bob, you have absolutely and totally direspected the entire flight attendant profession. I am very insulted by what you have posted. You have absolutely no idea whatsoever as to what we really make, live with and deal with. I don't think I could ever support your cockroach mentality again.

And PAAAALLLEEEEEZEEE don't give me any of your rhertoric. It will go in one ear and out your winky dinky.!!!!!!! <_< :angry: