Flight Attendant News

Well, they did it!

BBC News is reporting that the first evacuation drill of the huge new A380 passenger aircraft was a success. Despite some injuries to the volunteer "passengers" (including one broken leg), about 850 people were evacuated from the huge Airbus plane in less than 90 seconds.

Here are the details:

The practice drill proved a nerve-wracking exercise for those taking part as well as those watching.

The passengers had 90 seconds to get out of their seats and to exit the aircraft by one of the eight exits available - the A380 has 16 exits but half of these were closed off.

The drill took place in the dark and passengers had to contend with luggage, blankets, pillows and other debris strewn across the aisles.

Those sitting in the upper tier of the twin-deck plane found themselves 26 feet off the ground, although emergency slides had been put in place before the exercise began.

To make the drill as realistic as possible, the volunteers represented a broad-cross section of the population in terms of age and sex.

About 40% of those taking part were women, while 35% had to be over the age of 50.

Three life-size dolls were carried on board to represent children under two-years old.

The drill is required for certification of the airliner by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the FAA. Representatives of both agencies observed the evacuation drill. The European and US regulators will report on Monday, March 27, whether the drill met their safety requirements.

Read the whole article here.

Update: Hmm. We barely got the above post published when another story about the A380 evacuation drill came across the wires, this time from Reuters in the UK. This version says that the evacuation drill was "interrupted" after some 31 people were injured because a slide "disinflated."

Something tells us that the final version of the story has yet to emerge. When it does, we'll report it on this blog. Stay tuned...

Update No. 2: What could it have been like to be one of those volunteer "passengers" on the A380 for the evacuation drill? To find out, have a look at Flight International reporter Kieran Daly's blog about the event.

The Cincinnati newspaper The Enquirer reported yesterday that Comair is recalling laid-off flight attendants and hiring new ones as well. The newspaper article quoted Comair spokeswoman Karen Moser who said that the return of five 70-seat jets to Comair's fleet - along with high turnover rates - have led to more job openings.

"We have had some increase in flight attendants leaving the company and expect that to continue as we continue our restructuring," Moser said. "We certainly understand that it is difficult to make these kinds of adjustments in one's personal and professional lives."

Meanwhile, Comair's flight attendants have been voting for the past two weeks on whether to authorize a strike if their present contract is voided by the company as a part of its bankruptcy restructuring. In an article entitled Comair strike vote comes today, The Enquirer says that the union would now begin counting those ballots.

"I believe we will have a very strong yes in favor of the strike vote," local union president Connie Slayback said Thursday.

Slayback stressed that a "yes" result does not mean an immediate walkout. However, it would give union leaders the power to call for a work action if the contract is voided.

Slayback would not comment on whether the union would call a strike in such an event.

The two sides will take part in Federal bankruptcy court hearings this coming week. A decision by the judge is expected by April 10.

The new A380 aircraft, built by Airbus will undergo a crucial test in a few days - one that certainly should be of interest to flight attendants.

On March 26, 2006 Airbus will undertake a full-scale evacuation test of the very large aircraft in Hamburg, Germany.

The demonstration in Hamburg will use 853 volunteer "passengers" drawn from Airbus staff and local gym members, plus 18 cabin crew provided by Lufthansa and two flightcrew. The 873 occupants have to be safely evacuated in 90s using half the exits on each deck.

Airbus says 16 observers from the US Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will watch using 40 infrared cameras inside and outside the aircraft.

The U.S. and European regulators could refuse to certify the aircraft if they are unhappy with the result.

One concern is that a technical fault or injury to a participant could negate the test. Guimera says: "There are two or three things that could be an issue -– either we have one slide that does not inflate or deflates during the test, in which case we have to stop for safety reasons. Or if we have an untimely safety event for the evacuees, in which case again we have to stop."

He says that, even if a particular number of people are evacuated, that might not be the final certificated figure if the regulators are dissatisfied with the way the evacuation proceeded.

This evacuation test will be more ambitious than anything ever before attempted. According to an article on the aviation news website FlightGlobal.com, Airbus and the regulators have agreed to these key points about how the test will be carried out:

• Although Airbus will be told 48h before the test which doors to disable, the cabin crew will not know
• the test will take place in the dark, with only minimal safety lighting outside
• the crew and volunteers must be "naive" -– in that they must not have taken part in any similar exercise within the last six months
• 35% must be aged over 50, a minimum 40% must be female and 15% female and over 50
• for safety reasons, the upper deck slides will be predeployed, the regulators having agreed that this gives no advantage because of the time taken for the doors to open. The occupants enter the aircraft through a tunnel and cannot see which slides are in place.

Cabin crews everywhere will be waiting to learn about the outcome of the test! Read the whole article about the test on FlightGlobal.com.

In a press release issued yesterday, U S Airways announced the recall of approximately 400 furloughed flight attendants. The recall notices, which begin in nest month, will be issued on a seniority basis.

"We continue to make great progress in building the new US Airways, and today's announcements furthers that momentum," said President and CEO Doug
Parker. "We are thrilled to welcome these employees back to a new airline that has a fresh attitude and bright future ahead of it."

The announcement follows the recent recall of 55 furloughed US Airways pilots and the airline's decision earlier this year to begin hiring approximately 200 reservation agents in 2006.

U S Airways merged with America West in September 2005, thus becoming the fifth largest domestic airline in the United States.

Flight attendants at Comair, a wholly owned subsidiary of bankrupt Delta Airlines, have been asked to agree to pay cuts of about 30%. The flight attendants' union has said "no."

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union representing Comair's flight attendants, issued a press release On March 10th announcing the distribution of fliers by Comair flight attendants at the Delta Terminal in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Headlined, "Delta Loves to Discriminate and It Shows," the leaflets protest Comair concession demands that would single out the flight attendant unit, represented by Teamsters Local 513 in Cincinnati, for deep cuts.

Earlier this week Local 513 mailed strike authorization ballots to its members in case the contract is struck down and Delta imposes concessions on the Comair flight attendants. On February 21, Cincinnati-based Comair, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines, asked the federal bankruptcy court that is handling Delta's Chapter 11 restructuring to reject Comair's collective bargaining agreement with its flight attendants so that concessions could be imposed.

Although other units have been asked to make painful concessions as well, only the flight attendants are being asked to make cuts that would put their families below the federal poverty level.

"These cuts will really hurt my family," said Karen Terry, a Comair flight attendant and mother of two. "We were already struggling because Comair raised our health care coverage costs last year. Families like mine can't weather a one-third cut in pay and compensation."

Connie Slayback, President of Local 513 said, "We know that we will have to make sacrifices but we're hoping the bankruptcy judge will perceive what a disproportionate sacrifice Delta is trying to wring from this group of working women -- most of them mothers who help support families."

According to the union, the company's demands would slash the average Comair flight attendant salary of $28,000 by about $10,880.

The Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA), the union representing flight attendants at Northwest Airlines, announced in a press release on March 1, 2006 that they had reached a tentative contract agreement with the airline. Union president Guy D. Meek said:

"While this has been an especially difficult period for our airline, we would like to ensure our customers that our Flight Attendants remain up to our current challenges, and will continue to serve the thousands of daily travelers who put their safety and security in our hands with the highest esteem and regard."

Details of the terms of the new agreement have not yet been publicly released.

There is some interesting commentary about the situation on the website of Minnesota Public Radio in a piece with the title NWA and flight attendants hit tough compromises.

The flight attendants union says it scored a coup in fending off a proposal that it called outsourcing. Northwest repeatedly denied that it wanted to outsource flight attendant jobs. Instead, airline officials said they simply wanted to hire foreign nationals on some international flights to better meet the language needs of customers.

But the flight attendants viewed the proposal as grounds for a strike and garnered the support of politicians on Capitol Hill to lobby against it.

Guy Meek, the president of the Professional Flight Attendants Association, says the union's campaign against the so-called outsourcing proposal succeeded.

"I think really it became an albatross around Northwest's neck that the foreign national piece or foreign worker piece created so much negative momentum toward the company, because of so much feedback by us," he says.

Meek says the union's tentative deal with the airline not only protects against outsourcing; it also provides job security in the event of a merger. But Meek says the flight attendants are taking major hits in other areas. He wouldn't give specific numbers concerning pay reductions and job cuts before union members have a chance to see the proposed deal. But Meek stressed that the union was only able to achieve $195 million in concessions through some big sacrifices.

The issue of "outsourcing" flight attendant jobs has been a particularly contentious one in this labor dispute between Northwest and the PFAA.

University of Minnesota professor of industrial relations John Budd says the flight attendants may have succeeded in sending a message throughout the industry that unions won't tolerate losing jobs to lower-paid foreign nationals. And he notes that the Professional Flight Attendants Association -- PFAA -- has probably also succeeded in snuffing out a rival union's effort to represent Northwest flight attendants.

Northwest's pilots union also reached a tentative agreement with the carrier, thus averting a strike.

An Associated Press article published in Sarasota, Florida's Herald Tribune and elsewhere reports that Federal investigators have ruled on the probable cause of the accidental death of an American Airlines flight attendant in 2001. They said that pilot error led to the flight attendant being sucked out of the aircraft he was aboard after it made an emergency landing at Miami.

According to the article:

American Flight 1291 took off from Miami for Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with 121 passengers on Nov. 20, 2000. During the emergency descent back to Miami, there were pressurization problems, and the captain ordered the evacuation, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

When the plane was on the ground, flight attendant Jose Chiu, 34, of New York, struggled to unfasten the front cabin door, and it exploded open. He fell two stories to the tarmac.

NTSB investigators concluded that pilots had not used a manual control to depressurize the plane. As a result, excessive pressure built up in the cabin causing the door to suddenly open.

The accident investigation actually was completed three years ago, but the "probable cause" statement was not publicly released until this week.

A Federal grand jury has indicted a man from Georgia for assaulting a flight attendant earlier this year on an AirTran Airways flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta.

TV station WXIA in Atlanta reports:

According to authorities, David Sidler started to get agitated on the January 21 flight and talk about the September 11th attacks. He then paced the aisles before getting sick in the lavatory, which he claimed was due to taking methamphetamine.

When the flight attendant called the captain of the airplane about Sidler's behavior, Sidler grabbed the flight attendant and took the telephone from her, according to federal prosecutors. At that point, Sidler told the captain to land the airplane immediately because there was a bomb on board.

Four Atlanta Police Department officers who were returning from a narcotics conference in Las Vegas happened to be on the flight. The officers were able to subdue Sidler after a struggle. He was arrested by the FBI when the airplane landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Ellen Simonetti, the Delta Airlines flight attendant who was fired because of her blog is about to publish a book based on her blog. The title of the self-published book will be Diary of a Dysfunctional Flight Attendant: The Queen of Sky Blog. It is scheduled to be released in April, 2006. Simonetti will be selling signed copies of the book on eBay.

Ellen continues to maintain her blog, Diary of a Fired Flight Attendant. You can find more information about Ellen and her book there.