Flight Attendant News

If you are currently looking for work as a flight attendant, the Association of Flight Attendants - CWA, the union that represents over 46,000 flight attendants at 22 carriers, has a page on its website that can simplify your job search.

The helpful web page currently lists information about 24 airlines known to be recruiting flight attendants or accepting applications.

US Airways and its flight attendant union have come to an agreement regarding the integration of the US Airways and America West flight attendants in the newly merged carriers.

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "scores of the nearly 1,700 flight attendants laid off by US Airways would be hired back."

"It's much better to give a job to someone who'd been furloughed than to hire off the street," said Mike Flores, a Charlotte-based flight attendant who is president of the union's US Airways unit.

US Airways plans to hire 200 to 225 flight attendants this year, starting later this month. Those jobs would almost all be based in America West's main hub in Phoenix because that's where business growth will occur, including new flights to Hawaii, he said.

Flight attendants at US Airways are represented by the Association of Flight Attendants - CWA, also known as "AFA."

More details of the agreement:

US Airways and America West closed their merger deal in September and began marketing the airline solely as "US Airways" this month. But the carrier, now based in Tempe, Ariz., can not combine operations -- including aircraft and crews -- until it receives a single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration. The carrier hopes to receive that in mid-2007.

The transition agreement also means that when flight attendants are rehired, they come back at their last pay rate and benefit levels but their seniority rankings start over from scratch. Such was the compromise between labor leaders representing the more-junior flight attendants of America West and the more-senior ones in the East.

Flight attendants cannot transfer between East and West bases before US Airways obtains its single operating certificate, he said. Afterwards, seniority and its privileges would be determined simply on one's date of hire, like all previous US Airways mergers had evolved, said Flores.

The agreement does not need to be ratified by union members. But it does pave the way for the union and US Airways management to begin contract talks, which are expected to get underway in late February, he said.

US Airways reached similar transitional agreements with its pilots union last October, and with the customer-service workers union in December. Of the main work groups, only the aircraft mechanics and bag handlers unions have not reached transition agreements with the airline.

A trio of professors from the National University of Singapore have written an interesting new book about Singapore Airlines (SIA).

The book, Flying High in a Competitive Industry: Cost-Effective Service Excellence at Singapore Airlines, was written by Professors L. Heracleous, J. Wirtz, and N. Pangarkar. It explores how SIA has managed to maintain its high level of service, while keeping its costs low at the same time.

An important feature of SIA's image of superior service to customers hinges on its cabin crew, especially the famous "Singapore Girls," as SIA calls its female flight attendants.

An article on a Singapore website, The Electric New Paper, reviews the new book and interviews the authors. It has this to say about SIA's cabin crew:

SIA receives 16,000 applications for cabin crew a year but hires only 500 to 600 people.

Applicants are put through three rounds of interviews, a 'uniform test', a water confidence test, psychometric tests and a tea party.

After training, cabin crew are put on a six-month probation.

At the end, SIA confirms only 75 per cent of them, 20 per cent get a probation extension and the rest leave.

Said Dr Wirtz: 'There's a very rigorous selection and they are not afraid of letting people go if you don't perform.'

Commenting on the training, he added: 'SIA purposefully trains its cabin crew to read customers and how to surprise them.'

The book also mentions many SIA "service firsts." Many years ago, SIA was the first carrier to provide free drinks, free choice of meals, and free headsets. More recently, SIA was the first airline to provide video-on-demand, and champagne for passengers in economy class.

Emirates, the international airline of the United Arab Emirates, based in Dubai, will be hiring a large number of new cabin crew in the coming year.

According to an article on the Trade Arabia website, the airline plans to hire 8,000 new cabin crew as it prepares to take delivery of its new Airbus A380 Superjumbo aircraft.

"We are currently hiring 60 crew members every week. From next year the average recruitment of cabin crew will go up to 100 per week as larger aircraft join the fleet, especially the A380s," said Terry Daly, Emirates senior vice-president for Service Delivery.

"This is in addition to the 6,000 cabin crew that we already have. By 2011, we will have more than 14,000 cabin crew on our payroll."

The airline also is expanding its crew training facility at Garhoud.

Expansion of the training facility, to be completed by early 2007, has been awarded to ETA-Ascon. The training facility will increase its capacity from 28 classrooms to 58 and from a single simulator to three full motion simulators.

Information about jobs with Emirates can be found on the Emirates Group Careers Centre web page.

Flight attendants, and those seeking to become flight attendants, may be interested to have a look at the Flight Attendants section in the current edition of the U.S. Dept. of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is available on line. Maintained by the Dept. of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the handbook presents an overview of various jobs, including working conditions, training and other qualifications and current job outlook, as well as other related information.

The section on Flight Attendants was last updated in late December of 2005. It lists these as "Significant Points" about the job:

• Job duties are learned through formal on-the-job training.
• Competition for positions will remain strong because the opportunity for travel attracts more applicants than there are jobs, with only the most qualified being hired.
• A high school diploma is the minimum educational requirement; however, applicants with a college degree and with experience in dealing with the public are likely to have the best employment opportunities.

The report strikes an optimistic tone in describing the employment outlook for flight attendants, with a few reservations:

As airlines expand their capacity to meet rising demand by increasing the number and size of planes in operation, more flight attendants will be needed. Over the next decade, however, demand for flight attendants will fluctuate with the demand for air travel, which is highly sensitive to swings in the economy. During downturns, as air traffic declines, the hiring of flight attendants declines, and some experienced attendants may be laid off until traffic recovers.

Despite the improving outlook, competition is expected to be keen because this job usually attracts more applicants than there are jobs, with only the most qualified eventually being hired. College graduates who have experience dealing with the public should have the best chance of being hired. Job opportunities may be better with the faster growing regional and commuter, low-fare, and charter airlines. There also are job opportunities for professionally trained flight attendants to work for companies operating private aircraft for their executives.

The majority of job openings through the year 2014 will arise from the need to replace flight attendants who leave the labor force or transfer to other occupations, often for higher earnings or a more stable lifestyle. With the job now viewed increasingly as a profession, however, fewer flight attendants leave their jobs, and job turnover is not as high as in the past. The average job tenure of attendants is currently more than 7 years and is increasing.

We recommend that all current and aspiring flight attendants have a look at the Dept. of Labor's report.

A labor disagreement between the management of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and its cabin crew union has erupted over pay scales for some Chinese nationals that the airline has hired to work on flights from Beijing and Shanghai to Copenhagen.

According to an article on the website of The Copenhagen Post, SAS has hired 35 Chinese employees, primarily for their language skills, but is paying them substantially less than the Danish employees they apparently replaced.

The airline saves significant amounts by hiring the employees. A Chinese employee, for example, costs the airline a total of DKK 10,000 (EUR 1300) per month, while a Danish employee costs DKK 50,000 (EUR 6600) per month with hotel stays, uniforms, and other expenses included.

The Chinese flight attendants were hired under individual contracts that circumvented negotiated agreements with the cabin personnel's labour union, according to the union's chairman, Verner Lundtoft Jensen.

'We don't have anything against colleagues from foreign countries,' said Jensen. 'The matter up for discussion is that if they are employed here, then the Danish labour agreement is what they should work under. And that means that you have the same wages and working conditions. We don't want to risk ending up with an 'A' and a 'B' team,' Jensen told national broadcaster DR.

Jensen noted that while the airline had hired the Chinese flight attendants, 40 Danish employees have been fired.

'We find it strange that an airline owned 50 percent by the state goes out and hires foreign workers to do the work that normally has been done by Danish cabin personnel. It's a straightforward export of Danish jobs to China,' he said.

The union threatened to call for a strike if SAS refuses to hire the Chinese attendants under the same conditions as their Danish colleagues.

Flight attendants at Continental Airlines will begin voting tomorrow on whether to accept a proposed contract.

According to an article on the Houston Chronicle's website, Continental's flight attendants' union, representing some 8,600 cabin crew, is the only one that has not yet approved its share of concessions sought by the airline.

Larry Kellner, Continental's chairman and chief executive officer, noted that every vote by the 8,600 flight attendants is important.

"I can't stress enough how crucial this vote is to our company for us to continue on the successful path we are taking," Kellner said in a taped message to Continental's estimated 42,000 employees.

Terms of the proposed four-year contract include "preserving wage rates for current flight attendants, a top base pay rate that increases to $50 an hour prior to the end of the four-year agreement and a no-furlough clause." Other issues, such as improvements in crew rest and participation in profit-sharing and stock-option plans also are addressed by the proposed contract.

The union leadership and Continental management reached a new tentative agreement in December after many months of talks. Had no deal been reached in December, the board might have released the parties into a 30-day cooling-off period, after which a strike would have been possible.

That threat still exists, because a vote against the measure could lead to a strike eventually. In addition to voting on the wage and benefit concessions, flight attendants are deciding whether to authorize a strike.

Voting will begin on January 18, and will run through January 29, 2006.

Continental's flight attendants are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Since early last year, the folks at the Corporate Flight Attendant Community, an online forum for business flight attendants, have been monitoring a curious and mean-spirited hiring scam.

Advertisements are being placed in newspapers all around the U.S., seeking applicants for a flight attendant job aboard a "corporate jet." The ad promises training, and an excellent salary and benefits package.

Unsuspecting applicants are invited to a distant city for an interview, but are asked to front the money for their air tickets to get there. They are promised reimbursement at the time of the interview. Assorted excuses are given for this unusual request.

Of course, once the applicant sends a money order for the airfare, they never hear from the prospective employer again!

Matt Keegan, who runs the Aviation Employment Board as well as the Corporate Flight Attendant Community, recently discovered that the Better Business Bureau in Western Virginia published a warning notice about this scam in Staunton, VA's News Leader. The warning states:

The bureau has been unable to obtain the name or address of the firm. Legitimate employers will never ask for a bank account number before an employee has reported for work, the bureau said.

You can read about the whole ugly saga, including several personal stories, on a thread called So, this is a scam?, on the Corporate Flight Attendant Community forum.

United Airlines appears to be seeking more new flight attendants. After receiving an overwhelming number of applications in late 2005, active recruiting was temporarily suspended. Judging from the appearance of this page on United's website, the airline has resumed its search for flight attendant candidates:

We are looking for customer-focused, adaptable, reliable, positive, high-energy, self-motivated team players who thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. If you have these qualities and a desire to help set United apart from the competition, we want you at United.

Those who successfully applied to United in November of 2005 are beginning their initial training this month.

The Travel Channel will begin airing a new reality tv series about flight attendants on Thursday, January 12. The new show, called Flight Attendant School, will follow a class of prospective Frontier Airlines flight attendants through the course of their initial training. Initial training for F/As at Frontier lasts six weeks.

According to an article on RockyMountainNews.com, most of the filming for the show was done at Frontier's headquarters near Denver International Airport.

The series, called Flight Attendant School, aims to show viewers there's much more to the job than serving "peanuts and Pepsi," as one executive at Denver-based Frontier puts it during the first episode.
...

Flight attendant hopefuls must master two dozen tests, memorize tedious in-flight safety demonstrations and learn a host of skills, such as exterminating fires, administering CPR and handling violent passengers.

Judging from the comments on several aviation message boards, working flight attendants are hopeful that the series will make good on its promise to portray the cabin crew profession in a realistic way.

The U.K. online newspaper the Telegraph reports that cabin crews at Air India have been issued an ultimatum: Lose weight or be grounded.

The article tells us that "one in ten of Air India's 1,600 pilots and cabin staff are believed to be overweight."

The move appears to have been prompted by a desire to spruce up the image of Air India. While its safety record is good, it has struggled with a reputation for unglamorous planes, delays and slack service.

The airline has also faced increased competition in recent years from budget airlines, which are frequently staffed by young, dynamic cabin crews.

The article did not define "overweight," but did allude to the fact that its older staff might be those most affected by the new weight controls.

"Airlines worldwide follow similar guidelines on fitness. Imagine if crew members can't fasten their seat belts, how can they fly?" Air India's weight directive is believed to have resulted from the airline's employment of older staff. Indian law dictates that women are able to work as cabin crew until the age of 50, while men can be employed until the age of 58.

There were reports in the Indian media that cabin crew had welcomed the decision to penalise staff who were overweight or obese.

"We welcome the decision, as it is for our own benefit," Raju Joshi, of the Air India Cabin Crew Association, told the Hindustan Times newspaper this week.