United Airlines is reportedly struggling to find hotels that will take its flight attendants during layovers, according to the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) which represents more than 25,000 crew members at the Chicago-based carrier.
The hotels that flight attendants stay in has become a hot topic in ongoing contract negotiations between United and the union, with crew members fighting to get to stay in better quality accommodation close to the main sights.
While the AFA has won significant concessions from United in these negotiations, the union has just warned flight attendants that finding a good quality hotel in the right location and at the right price is becoming increasingly difficult.
Flight attendants may well bemoan constant accommodation changes, especially when they’ve become accustomed to a certain hotel in a given city, but the truth is, AFA says “many hotels simply don’t want crew business anymore.”
Signing up to an airline contract can be a double-edged sword for hotels – on the one hand, they get guaranteed occupancy, and these ‘guests’ are generally quiet and not around for very long.
But there are plenty of drawbacks as well. Unpredictable arrival and departure times, 24-hour stays that completely rip up the standard check-in and check-out times, and minimum room requirements that prevent flight attendants from being situated near elevators, ice machines, and make airline contracts a challenge.
As the AFA notes, the long list of contractual hotel requirements makes flight attendants “more complicated guests than the average tourist.”
And despite worries about the economy, as it stands, hotels are finding they can sell fewer rooms at higher prices to regular guests.
At present, United has been getting around some of these issues by using a clause in the flight attendant contract that allows it to find hotels for layovers in downtown locations or downtown-like locations.
In London, that’s resulted in flight attendants being sent to a sleepy little town 24 miles southwest of Central London. Flight attendants have also been moved out of downtown hotels in Amsterdam, Rome, and New York City, to name but a few destinations.
In times gone by, full-service airlines took pride in making sure their crew stayed in Four or Five Star hotels in desirable locations. This was part of the appeal of wanting to do the job in the first place, but in recent years, there has been a major shift.
Nowadays, the AFA says price has become an increasingly important factor in hotel selection, and as long as the hotel that United finds hits the minimum contractual obligations, it has little scope to reject the hotel choice.
There is, though, a sign that things could improve, at least slightly, if agreement on a new flight attendant contract can be reached.
The tentative agreement that was reached in the summer will remove the clause for longer layovers, allowing United to pick downtown-like locations, while wording about ‘business class’ hotels has also been removed, as this could actually see an improvement in hotel choices.
The problem, however, is that there’s no indication of when an agreement will be reached. The airline and union are expected to resume bargaining sessions later this month, although this will be without the help of a federal mediator if the government shutdown is still in effect.
Bargaining sessions have already been scheduled through to Spring 2026, so there’s every chance that talks could drag on for some time to come.
Every airport should be required to build an onsite hotel.
That doesn’t solve any problem. Airline contract, as the article implies, require downtown, or downtown like settings. Only short layovers can be done at airports.
EXACT!
I agree@
It all depends on how much the airline is willing to pay. I don’t think that Emirates, for example, has any problem finding hotel accommodations for its crews.
Why ?
I’m not sure that worsening the quality of hotels is remotely a good thing for the flight attendants. Scott Kirby isn’t helping things either by being a soulless bean counter who couldn’t care less about his people if he can save a buck.
While a flight attendant contract is long overdue, Scott Kirby is running the best airline that I’ve ever seen since being hired by United back in 1992.
Unions F up everything. Scott Kirby is a good man and is doing a good job. These FA’s were never promised the Ritz Carlton’s when they took the job. Get over yourselves!
So don’t bitch when your safety is in jeopardy because the crew is exhausted due to poor accommodations.
Your safety isn’t ever in jeopardy over the cabin crew. Make sure the pilots are rested.
I’ll assume from your emphatic assertions about Scott Kirby’s character and professional abilties, that you have a personal or professional relationship with him.
But what I know from your statement is that you have absolutely no actual knowledge or experience being, or with a flight attendant. If you were even 1/4 the expert on a flight attendant’s life and career, as you clearly are about Mr. Kirby, you would never make the statements “Unions F up everything” and “get over themselves”.
Do you always make staggeringly asinine comments or was this an exception? No, he’s terrible and doesn’t give one damn about the flight attendants. All he cares about is money. Period. His actions have proven that time and time again.
I would try to educate you, but anybody union bashing is so clearly ignorant that it’s not worth my time.
Where in the article does it say that the flight attendants were asking for the Ritz Carlton?
F/As are the biggest cry baby group there is. Nothing is ever good enough for them. They are constantly complaining about every aspect of their job. Simple solution… go find another job that suits your perceived worth.
What’s wrong with Ibis, Holiday Inn Express or similar 3 and 4 star hotels? They are clean, have food options, safe, iron etc. everything required by crew. It’s high time crew got off their high horses and got realistic with their expectations.
It isn’t about high horses. The chains you mention are especially good for short term stays close to airports but as the
article says, finding a place that will sell a room for 24 hours at a stretch rather than the standard model for this
range and location of 8-12 hour stays. A hotel that accepts air, sea, rail etc does so for (example on a Boeing 777,
2x rooms for flight crew and av. 11 rooms for flight attendants therefore sells out 13 rooms for 24 hours a day x length
of contract. It is better business to sell to regular demands which are also done by dynamic pricing. Raising the price
therefore to accommodate a crew puts an Ibis (a good brand by every account) into the Marriot or Hyatt category of pricing
and so out of the market.
The fact you even asked this question shows how ignorant you are about this topic. And it’s not my job to educate you, so don’t ask any questions why.
It’s easy for someone who doesn’t know anything about this to ask such a staggeringly asinine question. Educate yourself.
You clearly have absolutely no idea what it’s like to live as an airline crew member. When one spends 50% of your life living in hotels, nobody will volunteer for a job that stays in a Holiday Inn or an Ibis at the airport for half the month for 30 years.
I didn’t realize they were looking for volunteers.
Then find another job that meets your lofty needs
There are contractual obligations. First the hotel has to be downtown or downtown like. It has to be clean and provide food of some sorts as sometimes very delayed flights prevent the crews from access to an eatery.. A snack machine is then a must. No twin beds. This is not a problem in the US but I found it in Paris at the Mercure (near the Eiffel Tower: they join two twin beds and put a king size sheet over the two; it does not work well). A United hotel rep thought she would get away by choosing a hotel outside Paris (much much cheaper) for long lay-overs. I wrote that La Défense is not even in the designation of Paris 75 (check also the car licence plates) but in a suburb not well served by public transportation and you could not walk to downtown Paris. The multi lanes Peripherique separated the two. It took 2 years and a couple thousand letters of complaint to change things. Many years before it was the Zurich hotel that was in a village and we needed to take a train with snow up to our knees to get to the station.
Problems started well before Kirby.
Re-invigorate the London Heathrow flight attendant base and eliminate UK over night hotels altogether.
London / London area hotel costs are ridiculously over priced.
Why is this considered a United Airlines problem? Everything described applies to ALL airlines – big, small, domestic, international. Well, all airlines with union representation, anyway.
They work under different contracts.
Notice that there is no mention in this article of problems finding hotels for the pilots. There’s two reasons for this. First, of course there are fewer pilots. Only 2 to 4 pilots per flight versus 8 to 15 flight attendants. Speaking from long experience, however, another problem that is not mentioned in this article, is that for as long as I’ve been at United, over 30 years, whenever United tried to put flight attendants in the same hotel that the pilots already were at, we inevitably ended up getting kicked out of the hotel by the management. This was because flight attendants didn’t pay their bills, caused disruptions, etc., etc. etc. This sounds like a stereotype, but I saw it happened so many times over the decades that there is clearly a problem with the much younger employee group of the flight attendants, versus the older pilot group. This is a big, unstated, reason why they are having problems finding hotels for the flight attendants.
I’ll give you a concrete example. At international luxury hotels where pilots generally stay, those hotels usually give the pilots access to their lounges for evening snacks, breakfast, etc. Inevitably, if flight attendants moved into one of those hotels with us, we would almost always be kicked out of the lounge, because the flight attendants would bring in way too many people, cause disruptions, take bottles of wine, etc., etc. etc.
Having worked at the front desk of a major four and five star hotel near an airport. I can tell you that the hotels really don’t like it when airline cruise, especially American companies, such as Delta, American, and United stay at the hotel. These are the guests that always are vocal complainers… and serious drama queens even the female flight attendants, The hotel shuttle was late, etc. etc. etc. if I owned a hotel, I would also not commit to having flight attendants stay at a hotel
Interestingly, we never had a problem with pilots
Didn’t Hong Kong Airport build a Airline crew hotel near the new airport ?
I don’t understand the argument that pilots and flight attendants need to be treated the same. Pilots require a far higher skill set than flight attendants. That said, I don’t agree that flight attendants should be relegated to hotels that have limited service. Any crew member should be able to have an expectation to have access to a hotel restaurant after a long duty day.
I wonder how many major airports have ‘airport hotels’ of a good standard. Those hotels usually offer very good public transportation ‘into town’, are less expensive, and can offer much more in the way of restaurants, swimming pools, food & drink markets/kiosks, soundproofing, bars and good breakfast. All things equal, as a traveller, I prefer them to anything in the center of a city.
i mean it’s an airline that doubled down on newark in new jersey over JFK, so what would you expect.
Perhaps. Contracts require the attendants to be housed off site in case of disaster. I don’t see why many airlines just don’t buy their own hotels and then they can make more money on the back end renting out rooms to everyone else.
I know a flight attendant and what I understand is. They don’t really make that much money and they work hard and they don’t get paid for all the hours. They put in that are actual time spent while getting to the airport and back on certain things. But that’s a pretty hard job. I think having to fly all the time. I know it’s hard on me flying, but they do it everyday and I’m really proud of them. And working hard and accepting low pay. So I think a quality hotel is important but I understand corporations. Always gotta make profit, so I’ll pray for the flight attendants.
Ask Continental. They sold the United Seaside hotel in Honolulu when they merged.