United Airlines flight attendants using their ‘non-rev’ travel privileges might soon be allowed to use the secret crew rest bunks on widebody aircraft equipped with the facilities, after the crew union reached an agreement on the matter with the Chicago-based airline.
Crew rest facilities vary from aircraft type to the next; generally speaking, however, there are two sets of crew bunks on widebody aircraft.
There is a smaller pilot rest facility towards the front of the aircraft, with normally one or two recliner seats and two partitioned bunks, and then a seperate crew rest towards the rear of the aircraft with as many as eight bunks for the flight attendants.
Crew bunks are usually reserved exclusively for the use of the working flight attendants, although that might soon change at United Airlines.
For flight attendants who are using their non-rev travel privileges, but who have been assigned a spare jumpseat because all the regular passenger seats are occupied, the airline will allow them to use the flight attendant rest facility for portions of the flight.
The obvious benefit of this proposal is that a jumpseat can be incredibly uncomfortable, especially if you’re using one to travel on a long-haul flight. Sometimes, though, if an airline employee is desperate to get somewhere, they’ll happily take the jumpseat rather than being left behind.
Opening up the bunks to non-rev flight attendants gives them a much-needed break from the jumpseat, allowing them to sleep or just relax for a couple of hours.
For now, while United Airlines has approved the idea in principle, the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) is the one holding back implementation. The reason? They need to figure out a standard protocol for how this idea would work in practice.
Here’s the problem: the crew rest facilities are designed for the use of working crew members so they can get some rest, which is especially important on overnight long-haul flights when the risk of fatigue becomes a very real issue.
Even an hour or two of fully lay-flat rest in a crew bunk can reinvigorate a flight attendant and pep up their alertness for the remainder of the flight. That, however, becomes a big issue if you have non-revving crew members hogging the crew bunks.
Presumably, the protocol will look something like this: on-rev flight attendants assigned to a jumpseat will be allowed to use the bunk during the primary meal service, and will then be evicted while the working flight attendants take turns for their rest.
Should there be more bunks than crew members on the rest schedule, then the non-rev flight attendant might be able to stay in the bunk for the duration of the flight.
What would need to be figured out is which bunk the non-rev crew member would be allowed to use, as bunks are not created equal, and every flight attendant has their favorite bunk.
Unlike in many airlines, U.S.-based flight attendants are not required to have bunk rest to comply with strict anti-fatigue flight time limitations rules. Instead, many airlines include rest requirements in their collective bargaining agreements.
At United Airlines, flight attendants are permitted a minimum of one hour in the assigned crew rest location for flights of eight hours or more in duration, and a minimum of two hours when the flight length is 12 hours or more.
On shorter flights, of seven hours or more but fewer than eight hours, only a 30-minute break is required.
On aircraft that aren’t equipped with crew bunks, United is required to block out passenger seats that are then curtained off from the rest of the cabin. This will become particularly relevant on United’s yet to be delivered Airbus A321XLR single-aisle aircraft, which are set to be deployed on long-haul transatlantic flights.
