It seems as though we at West are better off with our existing contract for now with better vacation, scheduling, deadhead, insurance, etc. Why would we want to get a merged contract that isn't significantly better than the one we now have? The East fa's have the numbers to force us to accept thier will, but I think if they got to know how nice it is to have significant flexibility, they would be likely to want it as well. On a side note....I have worked with pilots for whole trips, we used to do it that way. I cannot inagine going back to that and losing all our high yield trips and turns that we can do now. Sounds like another pay cut to me.
Believe me, nobody wants to force anybody's will on anyone. We just want a nice, cohesive environment where we all get along and respect each other. We know how nice it is to have flexibility. You should have seen what we had pre-9/11... our reserves were the envy of the industry. We could pass trips for no better reason than we want to fly only 757 routings. Being quick-called was another story... we had to take the trips then, but they called from the avail list in reverse seniority order anyway. If we were quick-called and had less than four hours before we had to be at the airport, we could take cabs the airport and back home after our trip and the compay would reimburse us (back when they actually paid for the things they were supposed to!). I lived 8 minutes from DCA, and if I was quickcalled, my car stayed at my condo, no schlepping to the crew lot and dragging bags onto the crew bus. It was awesome! DCA was a dual base with IAD, so the company paid for parking passes at both airports. Once I got a call at 0140 to be at IAD at 0530. I immediately called a cab to schedule a pickup at 0445, got up at 0430, jumped in the shower, got into the cab at 0445 and changed into my uniform in the cab, again avoiding the crew lot and crew bus. Not a bad way to spin an early morning call for an early check-in. If they had us DCA people work a BWI trip, we'd get a town-car ride from DCA. Once I took a cab to DCA and jumped into the towncar. You can't do things like that anymore, understandably.
Usually we'd know what we were flying the day before, and it was usually someting we picked.
You serve a meal on a flight, you get an extra flight attendant. On 321 transcons, we'd have six flight attendants (two in F); now it's down to the FAA minimum of four for the entire A/C, not that that's horrible, just a sobering contrast. I remember once after 9/11 I worked a 321 BWI-LAX trip, I was A, and a lot of F/As were still calling out afraid to fly. We couldn't get an extra, even though the flight was full and the Captain was calling SKED trying to get one more. The flight was totally booked and I had to work F by myself... 26 seats, full hot meal, pre-departure beverages, snacks, crystal and china service, hot towels, the whole nine yards. Oh, yes, and making sure I had a makeshift weapon always within reach in case someone tried to charge the cockpit... I was the only security... no fortified doors, no FAMs, just me and my wine bottle, hair spray, keys. My wine opener had been taken away so I couldn't serve wine, but I had three full bottles handy in case I needed them.
We used to have entire lines build for "extras" where a flight attendant would go from plane to plane that was serving meals. That's all they did for the month and these trips went really senior. They were always happy and would pass on their years of wisdom and experience to the junior people. I learned more about the ins and outs of our contract than anyone else.
Them was the days! Now our ranks have been gutted and people hired almost 20 years ago are on reserve. That sucks. You get into this career thinking that you'd pay your dues for a couple of years, and then no more reserve. I was told when I was hired that DCA reserve would be for about a year and a half.; tow years tops! Now it goes back to 1988 or 1989 hire dates.
