According to The New York Post, yesterday federal agents charged a former American Airlines flight attendant with making terrorist threats. After being fired for throwing a coffee pot at a co-worker, Rodney Lorenzo allegedly said he would retaliate by giving cockpit-access instructions to Islamic terrorist groups.
The coffee-pot incident suggests Mr. Lorenzo is not your average mentally-stable flight attendant, and American surely made the right decision in firing him. Nevertheless, it's frightening to think of what could happen if airline workers were to "go postal." Especially when you consider that air crews are now among the most poorly treated work groups in the nation.
Most Americans are protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which limits a workday to eight hours and a workweek to 40 hours, but airlines are exempt. Governed only by the Federal Aviation Administration, they can push flight attendants up to 20 hours per day with no overtime. And thanks to ever-shortening layovers, they may only get four or five hours of sleep in between flights.
When I became a flight attendant in 2000, these brutal schedules existed, but they were the exception. My layovers probably averaged 13 hours. By the time I left in 2008, I could expect only eight or nine hours. When you consider that a layover is clocked from touchdown to takeoff, my "rest" included deplaning, traveling to and from the hotel, reporting back to the airport an hour before the next flight in order to brief with the crew, ready the airplane, board passengers, hang coats, and even pass out pre-departure mimosas.
I have been so tired that I have fallen asleep standing up. I have walked through the cabin, struggling under the weight of a coffee pot and asked "Cream or sugar? Cream or sugar?" I have cried in the lobby of a crowded hotel when, after a sixteen-hour duty day that ended at dawn, they were out of rooms.
Do I sound disgruntled yet?
The FAA's bare-minimum work restrictions were designed to be supplemented by collective bargaining agreements, most of which were dismantled after 9/11 through "temporary" employee concessions or bankruptcy proceedings.
Unfortunately, growing revenues are not easing the burden. As legacy US carriers now post a billion dollars in second-quarter profits, they continue to squeeze frontline employees - asking for even longer hours, shorter rest breaks, and further pay cuts. In many cases, these sacrifies are demanded while executives rack up salaries as much as 200 times that of their employees.
Yes, I am bitter. But relax, I won't be selling any of my insider-knowledge to Al Qaeda. Neither am I writing this for my benefit. Although I would love to go back to the job I had pre-9/11, I will not work as a flight attendant again. By publicly advocating for more rest and improved contracts, I have long burned any bridges there.
The question I ask is this: As contract negotiations stall and strikes loom at United and American, as Frontier unionizes and Virgin America attempts to, how will we as consumers respond? Will we support them, or will we spend our energy fighting for cheaper fares?
Airline workers deserve the fair labor standards we take for granted. Without them, you and I could pay the ultimate price.
Follow Tiffany Hawk on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TiffanyHawk
I agree with you. There are some outright bad flight crew out there.
Last month, I flew from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, and our flight attendants only came through the cabin once - the whole time! Then they went into the galley, closed the curtain and left a trash bag and bin with water and a few sodas in the aisle to encourage "self service." That crew should be ashamed of themselves. But most flight attendants are people-pleasers to a fault. Airline hiring managers administer personality tests to ensure this. When I was flying, my favorite part of the job was not exotic layovers. It was saying goodbye at the door and being thanked by friendly faces.
Despite my love of customer service, there were days when I so tired that while standing over the beverage cart, I would scoop ice into a cup and realize I'd already forgotten the order.
I think we can all tell the difference between fatigue and laziness, or even nastiness. We are well within our rights to complain about the latter. But please, please, when you experience good service, stop on the way out and tell the purser or captain how great the crew was. You will make their day. Or better yet, write a letter. Not just about that crew, but to your representatives. Tell them pilots and flight attendants deserve the same OSHA and Fair Labor laws that the rest of us enjoy.
and have sent in e-mails, letters and those little cards that i get sent with my FF card with specific names (last time from a phone Booking agent) to congratulate them.
I do, however; feel that there is not enough oversight of cabin crew behavior. Perhaps it is the particular airline I fly - but in the last 5 years or, in addition to the rare occasion where truly nasty/uncalled for behavior has occurred, I feel there has been a general decrease in the courtesy of cabin crews and their ability to communicate appropriately (without rudeness, snideness etc). After reading your article and thinking a bit more, perhaps this is, in part; the product of the decreasing work conditions for the attendants.
I flew 75,000 air miles last year with one US carrier alone (plus assorted other short hops) and I can tell you that several of the flight attendants were incredibly rude, abrupt and unpleasant. There is one particular route I fly where I swear that the airline must send their particularly disaffected staff. Being a flight attendant is a service occupation, if one doesn't want to work in a service occupation I think a change or career would be in order.
I feel for the state of your industry and for the tough work conditions, but I really don't want to hear about it (repeatedly) on a 12 hour flight - although I must say here at the HuffPo your comments are very apropos and you've given me a few things to think about.
It's not just the crews, it's everybody in this industry. No training, no leadership, no consistency, cut backs, no OT, extra hours, reduced workforce. Replaced with key performance index, metrics, blah blah blah while the ship goes rudderless. It's a pathetic environment created by consultants, bean counters and incompetence. Look at Delta, NO AIRLINE could touch it in the 70's-80's but then, the consultants were brought in and look at DL today, it takes 5 gate agents to board one flight and you still end up with too many passengers for the number of seats available. Take British Airways, a shadow of its former self, strikes on strikes. A global premium airline indeed! Look at Continental, twice in chapter 11, now merging with United. How are two financial losers able to turn this into a plus? Ask yourself "who's profiting from this"? Look at the airports, a maze of security and aggravation, look at the pilots, rushed and exhausted. It's as if we had put the whole industry in the hands of a 12 year old. Shame! Is it nearing bottom with Northwest 1000 safety violations? Do you think NW is the only one? But then again what happened to the FAA? Should we include ATC in this conversation? And the other sectors of the economy? Is it the same?
The NTSB Summary:
A RECENTLY DISCHARGED USAIR EMPLOYEE BOARDED PSA FLT 1771 AFTER HAVING LEFT A GOODBYE MESSAGE WITH FRIENDS. HE BYPASSED SECURITY AND CARRIED ABD A BORROWED 44 CALIBER PISTOL. A NOTE WRITTEN BY THIS PSGR, FOUND IN THE WRECKAGE, THREATENED HIS FORMER SUPERVISOR AT USAIR, WHO WAS ABOARD THE FLT. AT 1613, THE PLT RPTD TO OAKLAND ARTCC THAT HE HAD AN EMERGENCY AND THAT GUNSHOTS HAD BEEN FIRED IN THE AIRPLANE. WITHIN 25 SECONDS, OAKLAND CTR CONTROLLERS OBSERVED THAT PSA 1771 HAD BEGUN A RAPID DESCENT FM WHICH IT DID NOT RECOVER. WITNESSES ON THE GND SAID THE AIRPLANE WAS INTACT AND THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF FIRE BEFORE THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GND IN A STEEP NOSE-DOWN ATTITUDE. THE CVR TAPE REVEALED THE SOUNDS OF A SCUFFLE AND SEVERAL SHOTS WHICH WERE APPARENTLY FIRED IN OR NEAR THE COCKPIT. THE PISTOL WAS FOUND IN THE WRECKAGE WITH 6 EXPENDED ROUNDS. FAA RULES PERMITTED AIRLINE EMPLOYEES TO BYPASS SECURITY CHECKPOINTS.
Different world than in 1987...brought about, sadly, by necessity.