Inflight supervisors at American Airlines have allegedly been told to search airport terminals for flight attendants who aren’t wearing their uniforms correctly, according to a whistleblower who claims to have knowledge of the matter.
The supervisors have reportedly been ordered to look high and low for flight attendants in non-compliance with AA’s strict uniform guidelines and write up three crew members per week.
Flight attendants who are spotted and written up by a supervisor could face disciplinary action, including termination. The whistleblower claims it is highly unusual for managers to be deployed solely to look for uniform non-compliance issues.
The report comes less than a month after a leaked internal memo leaked detailed a new crackdown on crew members defying appearance guidelines such as wearing an ‘all-season’ coat outside of winter or wearing the uniform skirt more than one inch above the knee.
The memo warned flight attendants that the Dallas Fort Worth-based carrier was seeking “100% compliance” with appearance guidelines and that rule breakers would face unspecified “follow-up” action.
As well as checking out how flight attendants are wearing their uniform, supervisors have also been tasked to check out grooming standards, ensuring that flight attendants aren’t sporting orange nail varnish or nail art.
In response to another management initiative, Julie Hedrick, the president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), which represents crew members at the carrier, complained flight attendants were a “highly scrutinized and micromanaged work group” and were subject to a “harsh attendance and performance policy”.
American Airlines did not refute the allegations made by the whistleblower and did not respond to a request for comment.
This shouldn’t be too hard for them to accomplish.
why not fairy geff report this
Well that’ll take about 90 seconds. Don’t want to be written up? Then comply with the dress code you agreed to as part of your employment. I’ve even worked at low cost carriers where contract customer service agents had to file past their manager every day before going to the ticket counter for a uniform/appearance compliance check. Uniform compliance and pride in appearance denotes so much more. One airline I worked at was bought by another… that other airline allowed polo shirts and shorts. First day they removed ties and scarves from our uniform. After about a week, noticed agents putting them back on. Why? They said they felt the passengers took them more seriously, especially a business market like LGA or BOS, and had more respect when they looked professional.
I think the issue is if they have a quota for how many attendants they need to write up they will start writing up ones who are not in violation of the dress code.
Well flight attendants also work many hours not getting paid. They check in at airport way before flight, go to gate but don’t start getting paid until flight takes off. They stop getting paid when they land. Layovers they get around $2.50 per hour. Boarding is part of their job, they do not get paid. Why aren’t unions up in arms about this?
They are. More than one thing can be worked on at a time.
So who is your “whistleblower”? Big deal. You obviously have a friend who is an AA FA or you are in AA Facebook pages. This is not earth shattering news. AA FAs are in deep negotiations with the company…and this kind of action always happens during contract talks. It’s not a big deal..no one loses their job over it and it cleans up the crews a little bit for a few months.
Would love, love, love you to actually share some real news sometime……
AA managers are worried about a dress code? Maybe they should be writing up the men who wear dresses on their airplanes.
This is about compliance. If someone wears the uniform of the gender they identify with then that is fine. All I ask is that everyone be compliant with whichever uniform that you choose.
Honestly, uniform compliance checks have always been badly needed. Especially at AA for the past 20yrs or so. There have always been certain groups of people that simply don’t care what they look like. Problem is that their lack of compliance reflects on the entire work group as a whole. But I’ve only been a FA for 40yrs , so what do I know? 😂
I haveen’t flown AA for twenty years, despite my OW Sapphire status. As if this management tool would tempt me to fly again. As if any aspiring upper-management type doesn’t already do this.
I’ll stick with QR, or with DL domestic.