American Airlines often claims that it is far better at recovering from so-called ‘irregular operations’ than its rivals, but stories from frontline workers caught up in this month’s Winter Storm Fern tell a very different story.
Any boy are they mad. American Airlines cancelled thousands of flights over the space of just a few days during the severe winter weather that swept across much of the United States between January 23 and 27.
In fact, the carrier cancelled far more flights than all of its peers combined, and crew members caught up in the mess say they were left to fend for themselves as AA’s operation seemingly fell apart.
Notwithstanding the fact that American Airlines did avoid a full-blown operational meltdown, crew members represented by the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) have made their “deep disappointment” with the airline very clear.
“The company had ample time to prepare for the anticipated operational disruptions but failed to manage the situation effectively,” the union’s Boston branch slammed on Monday.
They say that ahead of the storm, the American’s Managing Director of Inflight Operations, Darlyn Meador, sent an email with lots of reassurances about how the airline was prepared to handle the storm.
It turned out that those claims were “false promises,” the APFA alleges.
“Winter Storm Fern is not the first example of the company’s incompetence in handling such situations, and we believe that change will only occur if we force it to happen,” the union slammed.
“Management must be reminded of their accountability to us, and we will hold them to that standard.”
Boston isn’t the only APFA base that wants to make it crystal clear just what it thinks about AA’s handling of the severe winter weather. Also on Monday, APFA’s Miami base called out the “serious operational failures” of the airline.
Christian M. Santana, a representative of APFA based in New York, also shared messages he received from flight attendants who had been left without hotel accommodation after being stranded during the disruption.
“Chris, I’ve never felt this vulnerable, scared, and abandoned on a strip,” one flight attendant wrote. “I get storms, in my 32 years of flying, I’ve dealt with plenty, but I have never been ignored like this,” the message continued.
“After almost three hours on hold, I was hung up on and ended up sleeping in the terminal. My number two [flight attendant working position 2] is three months pregnant and was embarrassed to even call for relief because she couldn’t get hold of her attendance manager at all.”
Christian blames the airline’s leadership for the failures that occurred in January, saying: “The result is unsafe and inhumane conditions for Flight Attendants on company property and throughout the system, while employees are expected to maintain a customer experience completely disconnected from reality.”
APFA says American Airlines is responsible for numerous violations of the contract it signed with flight attendants, and is calling on the airline to make things right.
Interestingly, chief executive Robert Isom continues to insist that his crew members are better than their peers at the likes of United Airlines because they have secured a contract – the same contract that APFA says was violated continuously during the winter weather.
