I know everyone would like to see those who were furloughed hired back on but I have a few questions.
First. If it only takes x number of people to do a job, ten why not just have that many people doing it? Who here has not gone by a road construction site or TSA check point and not wondered why it is that they have 15 idiots on duty and only 3 are working?
It all depends on different circumstances. Some people work quickly, efficiently, and with good humor. Some people are slow, sloppy, and snatchy. Some people are smart and some are not too bright. Some people are in good shape and some people are in poor shape.
Each flight's service depends on the weather we are traveling through, if there's no drama in the cabin or between the FAs, the neediness of the passengers or their passivity.
It's pretty much a golden rule that a full cabin is many times easier than working an empty one because when you are empty you never have a free moment. It seems as though passengers feel the need to run you to death because they see the cabin is relatively empty and feel almost entitled to ask for more things more times.
If they did time studies on a speedy crew that had no needy people and nothing going on in the cabin, it wouldn't be really accurate. It especially wouldn't be accurate because each person you take off the plane adds that much more of a work load for the others to divide and would add more time to the service as well as, most likely, taking away from the passengers perceptions of the flight and/or the airline.
from Garfield....Which leads me to question two.
Those 15 people all have to be paid a salary. I know I want a raise or at the very least not to loose any more money. If my department can do it's job with a few less people and I have to work a bit harder then so be it. I know, I know. Management will just hoard the money for them selves. Thing is, obviously more employees cost more money. If something can be done more efficiently why not do it? Throwing the baby out with the bath water does not make any sense to me. People have a tendency to waste when times are good and be very frugal when times are hard. Are companies that different? The fewer there are of us just standing around doing nothing means one less excuse they have of screwing us over.
This is a quote from the company about how much the FA work group costs according to Greg Bertolini when he was trying to negotiate with the company to get some of the furloughs back:
"recalling a former TWA F/A at top pay the average cost per head is $52,000.00 each. Hiring a new F/A on July 3rd 2008 would cost about (currently) $23,000.00 per head a saving of $29,000.00 on each head."
One of the reasons we fight to not lose positions on the airplane is because we want to have something to use as a bargaining tool during negotiations. The company is looking to do away with a lot of things in order to allegedly save the company money. We've already given the company billions in cost savings with our concessions and uncredited ideas in action the company cut out on the aircraft, as well as the furloughs. There are many service items we helped them eliminate that we actually used to use and have had to learn how to do without and not been given any credit for any of our loss on the plane. Half the time we are McGyvering stuff because we did away with things.
Past history has taught us that the company thinks in terms of a big pie with each work group making up a section of that pie. We aren't willing to give up any percentage of our pie to go in either managements or other work groups pockets. We're into trading pie these days. We give them a piece from here and they give us a piece back there.
OH yea and then there is the issue of the passengers who expect to have service on their flight. I know, screw the passengers right?
No. Not screw the passengers. If it's up to us we don't do it. If it was up to AA they would but we're always saving their bacon by covering for the things they take off the plane or conveniently forget to give us, as well as making things look nicer than they really are. FA's are the kings and queens of improvisation and it's a good thing because without the passengers AA mgmt is always trying to short change, we wouldn't have a job to come to.
