June 30, 2023
Dear Flying Partners,
After six days of cancellations, delays, and massive disruption to our work and home lives, the operation is only beginning to do better. The cancellations and delays are fewer than yesterday, but still far greater than a typical “bad day” for aviation. Flight Attendants have had to sleep in airports on cots and pay for their own hotel rooms. Some are still “lost” in the operation with no word from scheduling. The holiday weekend traffic is increasing, and the weather continues, but United is the only airline experiencing massive disruption.
We’re Flight Attendants. We know how to fix the problem. United management has partially implemented our demands as we note below, but our trust is broken and in order to account for all of the crew stranded in the operation, return crews to status that allows them to also work their assignments or voluntarily pickup time, and repair badly damaged morale - management needs to implement our full plan for recovery. Now. The only way “good leads” is with definitive action. This is a crisis and there’s no time for half measures.
Every minute wasted in their decision-making is a minute too late for recovery and delivering the public reliable, efficient air travel.
It’s time to stop with the excuses, the empty thank you’s and the heart emojis. We need true recognition and solutions for what we’re dealing with on the line. Management has had days to implement our plan for recovery and recognition of the hell we’ve been through. Here’s the list of our demands and current score card on management’s delivery.
Pay
300% for everyone working in the operation from June 27th-July 6th.
Score: D-, management has only agreed to 300% pay for trips picked up (Understanding White Flag Pay). This is selfish on the part of management desperate to have enough bodies for the operation but failing to truly thank, apologize, and recognize what we’ve all been through.
Hotels:
Staff-up corporate Hotel Team to get Flight Attendants accommodations faster
Score: B, management has doubled the number of people working on the Hotel Team, but Flight Attendants are still experiencing problems getting hotels.
Automatic extension of hotel rooms for cancellations to prevent eviction/automatic authorization for hotel to extend room
Score: C-, this has been done with hotels where United has existing contracts, but they’ve only promised “trying” at all of the hotels we’ve had to book outside the contract hotels because of their system meltdown. We don’t need excuses on this - United is a major company with the highest paid CEO, the airline can deliver fully on this too.
All Base locations to have credit card authorization to secure rooms
Score: B-, this has been in place for several days but the need is so great, the local management hasn’t been able to keep up with the need.
Provide Commuter Hotels for the month of July
Score: F
Discipline
No discipline issued for anyone in operation as the Flight Attendant has no way of reaching the crew desk in a timely manner
Score: Pass (Pass/Fail grading since this is the least they can do for the mess they created*), Management has agreed to no discipline from June 27 - July 6.
All Discipline meetings canceled until further notice
Score: Pass (*same), Management has agreed to this.
Commuter clause not counted as “used” during this meltdown
Score: F
Scheduling
If the flight is canceled, do not have to report to the airport until their pairing is updated
Score: C, management is automatically extending the hotel when the pairing hasn’t been updated, but they haven’t taken the next obvious step of telling crews to stay at the hotel until their pairing is updated. (AFA is telling you to stay at the hotel.)
All crews on their days off out of base at a hotel need to be returned home
Score: D-, while this has improved, it’s not complete and some crews are still “lost” in the system - in other words, scheduling doesn’t even know what city they are in. Until all are returned home this grade will remain teetering on fail.
Clear instructions for crews upon flight cancellation
Score: F, management has yet to put this in place.
Good can’t lead the way when United Airlines had a year to address many of the problems we are experiencing now, nor when United is running crew scheduling with nearly half the number of schedulers on the job at an airline one fifth the size. As our International President told CNN, blaming the FAA and ATC is absurd when the staffing issues with ATC were a known quantity going into this holiday travel period and every other airline is operating near perfect operations at this time.
Join us in telling management to put their money where their mouth is and show us whether they truly mean “thank you.” So far, the score card is pathetic for an airline that wants to be recognized as “leading.” People will remember for years how United failed to respond during this crisis they created. Or, they could choose to implement these items TODAY and gain the chance to be taken seriously.
In Solidarity,
Ken