Barack Obama Issues Statement Supporting Improved Standards for Airport Workers, Passengers
CHICAGO, IL – Senator Barack Obama issued the following statement today in support of passenger service workers at airports throughout California:
“I stand with the airline service workers who temporarily went on strike at Los Angeles International Airport last week. The demands they’re fighting for aren’t unreasonable – access to health care, adequate training, proper equipment, wages that can support a family – they’re what America’s workers deserve. Their efforts send a strong signal that it’s not good for workers, passengers, or the industry when business fails to live up to its end of the bargain. [Read more]
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“I make the state’s minimum wage and was forced into homelessness for most of last year,” Dwayne Green, a subcontracted airline service worker based in San Jose, California, said. “Most people wouldn’t believe me when I tell them I was homeless while working full time providing service for a major airline, but it’s the truth.”
“Without the right equipment, my job is more difficult, dangerous and the airplane is not going to be as clean as it should for the passengers,” said Guadalupe Rivas, a contracted airplane cleaner at LAX.
With its customer satisfaction ratings lingering at all-time lows and its workers struggling with inadequate training and compensation to deliver quality services, the airline industry clearly has a problem. [Read more]
LAX Passenger Service Workers Vote to Authorize Strike
Airline service workers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) voted overwhelmingly yesterday to authorize a strike at the nation’s fifth busiest airport. Workers said that they were fed up with declining standards of service and security at the airports. According to the workers, inadequate training, lack of proper equipment, poverty-level wages and lack of access to family health care are causing record turnover rates among workers and driving a race to the bottom in service and safety standards. [Read more]
Site Questions Airline Industry’s Subsidies, Inefficiencies and Demands for Loophole in Oil Speculation Legislation
As the U.S. airline industry attempts to use “oil speculators” to draw attention away from the chronically low passenger satisfaction rates and an array of new fees, a new online source, www.TheAirlineOilSpin.com was launched today to encourage the public to see through the industry’s spin on the issue.
The site is a project of the Reaching Higher Coalition, a growing alliance of community groups, passenger rights organizations, clergy, elected leaders, and airport workers who are committed to improving standards in the U.S. airline industry. TheAirlineOilSpin.com will function as an information source and forum to discuss and learn about the airline industry’s role in exacerbating their oil-related dilemmas, while at the same time benefiting from massive public subsidies.
While the airline industry has promoted multiple pieces of legislation that would place limits on some types of oil speculation, many of the bills supported by the industry include loopholes that allow the airlines themselves to continue speculating. At the same time, the industry has benefited from more than $8.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies since 2001, according to a recent report, Shortchanged, while passenger satisfaction levels and job quality standards for airline service workers have remained low. [Read more]
The Real Crisis
The Wall Street Journal, in an August 12th piece by Heidi N. Moore, sums up the real problems in the airline industry succinctly. And if you guessed rising oil prices, you’re only seeing part of the picture.
Ms. Moore explains:
Rising oil prices, of course, hurt the airline industry, but those stratospheric costs also provided a sort of cloud cover for the industry’s essential dysfunction. Intense competition, labor disputes, absentee parenthood from Washington regulators – all have combined to put the industry in a position that requires deeper thought.
In addition, the airline industry has a few fundamental issues it desperately needs to address. Various reports have found airlines’ service quality and passenger satisfaction levels to be plummeting. While receiving billions in taxpayer subsidies, airline companies continue to divest from its workforce and pursue outdated, shortsighted business strategies that are ill-prepared for today’s fuel conscious economy.
Ms. Moore, quoting an industry expert, sums it all up:
“No leadership, no policy, no strategy, everyone blaming the other… all circling Foggy Bottom while the industry goes down the Potomac.”
Click HERE to read the entire article.
photo credit: Cubbie_n_Vegas
Perspectives on United's Lawsuit against Pilots
On July 30, United Airlines filed a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction against the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and a group of UA pilots for allegedly abusing sick-time.
Holly Hegeman at PlaneBuzz.com offers some perspectives on the allegations. [Read more]
Skycaps Losing Big Time As Airlines Charge Baggage Fees
Tracing their history back to the tradition of the Pullman porters during the railroad era, skycaps used to be decent-income jobs for African Americans who supplemented their meager wages with tips – enough to buy their own homes and send their children to college.
Today, that reality is becoming more like a dream for skycaps across the country, according to a Los Angeles Times article. [Read more]
United Airlines’ Problems Summed Up
Portfolio.com’s business travel columnist, Joe Brancatelli, wrote an excellent article that sums up all of United Airlines’ troubles, perhaps best conveyed in its title: Worst. Airline. Ever.
He offers one of the best summaries of United’s woes in 2008:
Just 29 months removed from the longest, costliest, and least-effective bankruptcy in aviation history, the nation’s second-largest airline is once again facing a financial abyss. United’s first-quarter net loss of $537 million was more than its two main competitors combined. Last month it paid a huge premium to avoid a default on its loan covenants. Its 4 percent decline in passenger traffic in May was twice as steep as that of any of its competitors. Last week’s announcement that it would ground 100 aircraft, reduce capacity by 10 percent, and shed thousands more workers was startling given the huge contraction it already experienced while in bankruptcy. A 19-month search for a merger partner resulted in rejections from Continental Airlines and US Airways, a carrier that was desperate to sell itself to United just eight years ago. The airline’s shares slid into single digits last week from a 52-week high north of $50.
More importantly, he pinpoints United’s failing performances to its 2002 bankruptcy: [Read more]
Airlines “Fee”(d) on Passengers – $2 Bag Fee for Skycap Services
In the latest in a long string of new fees imposed on passengers, many airlines have now chosen to charge passengers a new $2 per bag fee for skycap services.
The airline race to the bottom hurts their low-wage workers too. After airlines implemented a $2 per bag fee for skycap services – which used to be complimentary – many skycaps report that they have lost as much as 60% of their income, as passengers now tip less or not at all.
Skycaps also report longer lines as passengers avoid the bag fee. And after Boston skycaps sued [Read more]
Airline Workers: Submit Your Story
Attention airline workers: Share your story with us! Whether you work directly for an airline or are subcontracted by an airline, we want to know what your experience is! Email your story to story@howwasyourflight.com, and we will post it on our website to share with others.
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