It’s interesting to look at what American Airlines flight attendants didn’t get in their negotiations. They’re going to get boarding pay – they’ll be paid for the time spent boarding an aircraft – but that doesn’t start until six months after the contract is ratified. They’re going to get higher 401(k) contributions, but that doesn’t start until 2025. They aren’t going to get higher staffing levels. They won’t even get pre-pandemic staffing levels restored.
During Covid airlines cut back on services.
They were trying to save money, and spent less on cateringThere were fewer premium passengers (basically no managed business travel) so little reason to investAnd with less work to do, they didn’t need as many flight attendants on board.
American Airlines generally staffs its narrowbody aircraft at FAA minimums – the lowest legally required number, which generally amounts to one per 50 seats. For widebodies they’ve had more that legal minimums, and that’s what they reduced. But they never brought back flight attendants to work these planes, even once the pandemic was over and travel (and premium travel) returned.
The airline actually began reducing onboard staffing before the pandemic. Then in 2020, American Airlines further reduced flight attendant staffing,
To one above FAA legal minimums on international widebody and transcon flightsTo the legal minimum on Boeing 787-8 aircraft
Here’s the current staffing levels:
The union grieved the changes but hasn’t told members what parts of their old contract were violated. An arbitrator’s decision is pending, but it seems unlikely the union will win.
They had an opportunity to restore staffing levels: contract negotiations. They didn’t seek higher staffing. But the FAA might make them increase staffing levels on some long haul widebody aircraft anyway?
American Airlines applied to the FAA for a ‘supplemental type certificate’ permitting use of doors on business class suites for the Boeing 777-300ER. They plan to retrofit this aircraft.
Rules say there can’t be doors inside an airplane cabin, because that slows down evacuation. But this originally referred to doors between cabins (hence, curtains). Still, business class seat doors require approval.
The FAA is concerned that the seat doors are locked open during takeoff and landing. Flight attendants are supposed to check for this. And the FAA says that this requires more crew than in the past.
Usually the FAA requires one flight attendant per zone of business class seats between emergency exits. However in their view this is for a maximum of 32 business class suites, and American proposes 22 in one zone and 48 in a second zone – so they require two crew monitoring suite doors in the second zone rather than just one.
For previous approvals of mini-suites with doors, the FAA required, when passengers are carried, an additional flight attendant whose primary duty was to ensure that the mini-suite doors were positioned correctly for taxi, takeoff, and landing. The total quantity of mini-suites increases both the probability that a door will be in the closed position during an emergency, and the workload on the crew to ensure otherwise. As a general guideline, the FAA has considered that, when passengers are carried, an additional flight attendant per passenger zone of installed mini-suites would be necessary. A zone is defined as the section of the cabin between emergency exit pairs. For example, in a similar exemption (No. 17186) for the Airbus A350, the FAA stated that the upper limit of mini-suites that a single flight attendant in one zone could reasonably manage is 32.
However, given the potential for innovative seating configurations, it may be possible to install even more than 32 mini-suites in a given zone. In that case, more than one additional flight attendant is necessary. The petitioner has proposed up to a total of 70 mini-suites: 22 mini-suites in zone 1 and 48 mini-suites in zone 2. With this large number of suites, the FAA will require 2 additional flight attendants when the maximum number of mini-suites exceeds 32 in any zone. Therefore, to grant this exemption, the FAA requires, when passengers are carried, 1 additional flight attendant in each zone where the mini-suites are installed, or 2 additional flight attendants in each zone where the mini-suites are installed, and the number of mini-suites exceeds 32.
The FAA required more flight attendant staffing for JetBlue planes with doors on their business class seats leading that airline to disable the doors to save money.
I asked American whether they can meet the FAA requirement with current staffing levels and without reducing business class seats, but they haven’t responded to the inquiry.
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