American Airlines Faces Flight Attendant Shortages at Dallas Hub Due to Management Groundings
Managers at American Airlines’ biggest hub at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) blocked 1,128 days’ worth of work for flight attendants in a single month, as crew members were grounded while the airline carried out investigations into anonymous complaints, first-time lateness, and stolen crew devices. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), which represents more than 7,000 crew members at DFW , by far American Airlines’ biggest base, now says the carrier’s “increasingly rigid disciplinary process” is having a real effect on punctuality, with flights being delayed because there aren’t enough flight attendants. And while DFW saw the highest number of lost flight attendant work days in June, APFA says a similar situation occurred across the airline’s hub bases that are dotted around the United States. Miami (MIA) lost around 646 flight attendant work days in June, LaGuardia (LGA) lost 484 days, Charlotte (CLT) lost 477, Philadelphia (PHL) lost 420 days, Chicago (ORD) lost 317 days, Phoenix (PHX) lost 221 days, Los Angeles (LAX) lost 201 days, and finally, Washington National (DCA) lost 68 days. In total, nearly 4,000 flight attendants’ work days were lost in June because flight attendants were being pulled off working flights so that they could attend management meetings or were grounded due to ongoing investigations. “No one is arguing against accountability. But somewhere along the way, common sense has been replaced,” an internal memo from APFA said. The union places the blame for this massive increase in lost flight attendant work days on a newly introduced management structure, which APFA describes as “micromanagement.” “Years of disappointing financial performance, recurring operational failures, inexperienced leadership, a lack of support for both passengers and employees, siloed departments, and an unhealthy obsession with disciplining Flight Attendants instead of addressing management’s own shortcomings have brought us to this point,” a second memo from the union slammed. “While the company has the right to manage its employees, we question why nearly every interaction has become an investigation.” When American Airlines’ Vice President of Inflight Bobbi Wells introduced the new management structure, it was described as a way to offer flight attendants, who don’t routinely work with a manager, more support. Instead, APFA says the new management structure is “disrupting our operations and costing the company dearly through unnecessary and excessive paid removals at all bases.” The union says it both accepts and supports the fact that management has the right to investigate and manage flight attendants, but claims the airline has become too focused on discipline. In one case, the union claims a flight attendant was put under investigation after they were the victim of a passenger assault. In another case, several flight attendants had to answer why they followed the airline’s own policies when a passenger made a complaint. The latest dispute comes just months after American Airlines introduced a new system that scores flight attendants against a slew of metrics that the carrier was quietly building over a 12-month period before anyone was even aware the platform, dubbed ‘Me@Work’ was being introduced. For now, at least, the platform is being sold as a way for flight attendants to monitor their own performance and give them insight into how their performance compares to their coworkers. Metrics included in the overall 'Me@Work' score include customer satisfaction, flight delays attributed to flight attendants, a so-called 'operational contribution,' and other data.