Moral and Operations in the dumps...

[iheartairbus]

So obviously to employees both frontline and behind the scenes and the customers mostly have noticed the horrible morale and operations nightmare that has consumed our airline this past month...

What can we do from our vantage point to help fix it? Obviously we all want our pay increased and our contracts settled fairly, but seriously with "slow downs" and "disruptions" looming everywhere it seems to only be making matters much much worse. Our poor customers are running away at an alarming pace and tempe seems to be missing the clue and point and turning around to blame us.

 

[NevadaHP]

you know what I say, let them blame us. Then the union leaders as a whole need to stand up together and call a PRESS CONFERENCE and let the nation know what these execs are doing. let them point the finger first and than go public. make it the headline on how these greedy mgmt SOBs are, and make the public realize our standpoint. The unions still left negotiating I believe are all AFL-CIO, Our fearless leader in the AFL-CIO should be there as well and make unions what they used to be.

 

[freedom]

yeah we should be the first one to point the finger! the middle finger that is lol....

i think if managment wanted to do things smartly they would stop being such moron's and treat people fairly , espcilly those of us in the west ... Start paying me decent and i will

1 : Start putting effort and care back into my job

2: kiss the coustmers ass at every point and sing the old motto "the coustmer is always right " instead of what i now do which is telling the coustmer to go #### themself .

 

[Nothin Less Than Victory]

its amazing how the airline unions can only sit there and collect your dues whils posting a few updates and doing nothing else. while on the other hand out california way the union for the grocery workers is actually making progress and actually enforcing their demands. almost seems like the US unions have teamed with management :unsure:

 

[Fly4Free]

yeah we should be the first one to point the finger! the middle finger that is lol....

i think if managment wanted to do things smartly they would stop being such moron's and treat people fairly , espcilly those of us in the west ... Start paying me decent and i will

1 : Start putting effort and care back into my job

2: kiss the coustmers ass at every point and sing the old motto "the coustmer is always right " instead of what i now do which is telling the coustmer to go #### themself .

I found myself yelling at a customer today after they refused to stop yelling at me. I yelled VERY LOUDLY mind you.. "STOP YELLING AT ME!!!"

Boy.. I don't deserve to be treated like a second rate human just because I'm the one who booked your airline reservation or vacation. Ignorant jerks.

 

[as the prop turns]

I found myself yelling at a customer today after they refused to stop yelling at me. I yelled VERY LOUDLY mind you.. "STOP YELLING AT ME!!!"

Boy.. I don't deserve to be treated like a second rate human just because I'm the one who booked your airline reservation or vacation. Ignorant jerks.

At that point, just call a supervisor or better yet a manager. Remember, management got us into this situation so let the passenger yell at them. This is what makes me angry; these "people" in Tempe makes these decisions without ever thinking things through and how they will effect pax and employees, however WE have to clean up their messes!

 

[philly rocks]

VERY WELL SAID PROP!

IT IS TIME FOR OUR COLLECTIVE CWA GROUP TO TAKE THE REINS AND RUN THE SHOW. SEEMS WE ARE THE ONLY ONES THAT KNOW WHAT THE CUSTOMER AND COMPANY NEEDS TO SURVIVE. WE CAN DO IT BY FLOODING KERBY WITH COMPLAINTS AND GET THESE ISSUES ON THE TABLE ASAP. I SEE ALOT MORE SOLIDARITY AMONGST OUR GROUP, WHICH IN TURN MAY POSSIBLE GET THESE PROBLEMS RESOLVED FASTER. WE HAVE TO DO IT FOR OUR CAREERS AND MOST IMPORTANTLY FOR OUR CUSTOMERS. IT IS SAD THAT OUR PASSENGERS WRITE THREADS TO ALSO GET THE ATTENTION OF CORPORATE. WE HAVE A BELIGERANT BUNCH RUNNING THE SHOW AND FOR THEM TO IGNORE OUR FLYING PUBLIC IS A MISTAKE.

 

[frqntflyer]

I found myself yelling at a customer today after they refused to stop yelling at me. I yelled VERY LOUDLY mind you.. "STOP YELLING AT ME!!!"

Boy.. I don't deserve to be treated like a second rate human just because I'm the one who booked your airline reservation or vacation. Ignorant jerks.

Here is a different point of view. I am NOT saying this is how you personally treat customers - but keep in mind - the following is VERY typical of my interactions with US employees. Did you ever stop and think that maybe, just maybe, some of the customer venom is being created by your fellow employees and is not just because we are all "ignorant jerks"? Anyway.......

I go up to the gate agent at LGA - who is on his cell phone on a personal call. Wait for 2 minutes for him to finish his call - without so much as any recognition that I am standing in front of him. (This more or less set the tone for the interaction that was to follow)

Request to change my frequent flyer number from DM to UA.

Response - "I can't do that".

Me - What do you mean you can't do it - I do it all the time.

Response - "I am not doing it for you".

Me - But I have done it many times in the past. (This is pre SHARES by the way - so that isn't the reason.)

Response: "I don't know how to do it"

Me - Well that is very different that you can't do it - so which is it - you don't know how - or you can't?

(And just to make it clear - this was the first segment on my trip - so that isn't the issue either.)

How about this as a suggested response: I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that. There is an agent at the next gate that should be able to help you. Or - "Are you a member of the Club? They should be able to do it for you there."

Delivery of the message is half the battle!

 

[philly rocks]

I am sorry to say this, but, what do you expect for $8.72 an hour? You get what you pay for! Unfortunately your revenue does not go to staffing it goes into corporate us executive board members.

 

[freedom]

you know what , i've been thinking about what you've said and i think perhaps you HAVE been getting bad treatment .... As far as any of our services go , if we are going to go along with the "do your job"mantra and shaft the passngers , we SHOULD at least shaft them politely instead of being dicks to them , that much i can agree on .

 

[as the prop turns]

First off, no agent should be using their cell phone at the gate. If I need to make a call or receive one, I step away from the gate or go down the Jetway. It is all in the delivery...there have been times, not many I admit (lol) that I did not know how to do something. I just picked up the phone or went to another agent who did. That agent is just ignorant and I hope not representative of all USAir agents.

 

[Travelpro72]

I will agree that being an east flight attendant myself we have MANY, MANY mean, disgruntled NASTY flight attendants. Some have horrible people skills and cannot speak with a customer without sounding like a prison guard. You have to understand that I can't count the times that passengers come onboard the aircraft MF'ing and getting all hot slamming and throwing bags around. Many don't come onboard with factual information and explaining themesleves. Many come on looking for an audience to cheer them on in their quest for well I don't know what. I just had a guy the other day who wanted to know why we were NOT leaving the gate. He cornered my friend in and let her have it. She said, I understand your frustration and its late. We all want to leave for west palm. He went on and on and on. Finally I went back and listened to him. I said, "Sir we are here for your safety and to provide you a beverage". She has already explained that she couldn't answer your question and appologized. We are here waiting for last minute passengers to alleviate stranding anyone overnight. He said he drove at breakneck speeds to get to the airport and risked a ticket and NOW has to wait. I said, well TSA tells you to be here 2 hours before your flight so I don't know why you were rushing but we wanna make sure we get everyone where your going as the flightcrew. You are FREE to go to the top of the jetway and ask your questions. I never lose it but finally I did. I said, Leave HER alone. We are NOT going to listen to this for 2.5 hours. If your unhappy and want answers I'm telling you where to get them. Now thats IT. He did appologize and we talked it out. The folks have a right to be pissed but don't take it out on the flight attendant onboard the a/c for something that happened in the terminal.

 

[Itestwell]

I will agree that being an east flight attendant myself we have MANY, MANY mean, disgruntled NASTY flight attendants.

I will disagree with that statement. Yes, we as well as every airline have miserable employees, but I respectfully disagree that we have "MANY MANY mean, disgruntled nasty" ones. Come on, Trav. That's pushing it.

 

[philly rocks]

We also have some very mean passengers. Some could be millionares, some could be convicted murderers. Sometimes it is impossible to difuse a situation and we must call the authorities. I can say though, for the most part our customer service team both ground and air do a helluva job but some, will never get it.

 

[Aryeh]

I am sorry to say this, but, what do you expect for $8.72 an hour? You get what you pay for! Unfortunately your revenue does not go to staffing it goes into corporate us executive board members.

I disagree! With "what you pay for" you do get a larger number of applicants who are incompetent, have poor judgment, less common sense and poor communication skills.
However you do get some applicants who are superior, or are potentially superior to any long-term, higher paid employee.
The problem is, and always has been, the company does a very poor job with selecting who among the applicants have the right stuff. And they do nothing to eliminate those without the proper aptitude or skills once hired. This, I realize is partly due to a desperate need for bodies and partly due to management's laziness to get rid of new hires lacking skills. The pay issue is valid and makes it very difficult to find good applicants. But there are good people out there. Finding and keeping them is a problem. As for the ones who shouldn't be doing the work, not hiring them or not keeping them has always been an issue, no matte what salaries are paid.
What's true is, no matter if we're using a tedious and backward system like Qik/Shares or using SABRE, things will run far smoother with five good agents than ten bad ones. Just think of how much we might make (I'm dreaming), if such a scenario were real.