A discussion about the airline industry, airline employees, and all things related

What will happen if flight attendants actually do go forward with their job action or even worse a threatened strike?  Most experts believe that a strike is not very likely.  If the union that represents the flight attendants at Northwest Airlines would strike, it would be their first strike in over 13 years.  However, a strike is still a strong possibility as both sides have said very little in the last few days.  The AFA, Association of Flight Attendants, has been tight lipped about what they plan to do come August 15, the date they set as an ultimatum.

"This is a union that has threatened strikes a lot but has not actually engaged in very many," said Jerry Glass, president of F&H Solutions Group, a management consulting company.

 The airline has said that it needs concessions from all of their labor groups, including the concessions from the flight attendants to reduce their labor costs by $1.4 billion dollars.  The airline says a strike under current conditions violates the federal Railway Labor Act, which restricts workers' rights to disrupt it and covers the airline industry 

What happens if there is no last minute agreement between the union and the airline?

AFA's spokesperson, Caldwell, acknowledged that the union's strike threats rarely lead to job action. In fact, data provided by the AFA show that pilots have struck far more often than flight attendants in the last 30 years.  Caldwell said the AFA would call a strike only as a last resort. Usually it does not come to that, she said, adding that displays of worker solidarity and the threat of job action often is enough to force management to compromise

There are several possibilities that the flight attendants could do to help get their point across at the airline. 

1)      The Flight Attendants could do random work stoppages.  This would include unscheduled random sick days by flight attendants.  They could collectively agree to not work certain flights, certain airports, or certain types of aircraft.  So for instance, flight attendants could agree to not work on board DC-9s.  This could affect more of a regional service in and out of Northwest Airline’s hub cities.  Or flight attendants could agree not to work flights numbered between 0001 and 0999. 

2)      The flight attendants could resort to a strike.  This would mean that flight attendants refuse to board any aircraft, any flight, and any region.  This could kill the airline.  Grounding an aircraft for a few hours can cost any airline thousands of dollars, but grounding an entire airline can cost them millions of dollars a day.  Neither side wants to this outcome.  The airline could be forced to liquidate but that would be a last resort option.

So if any job action would occur, how would that affect you? 

Well, Northwest Airlines is apart of the SkyTeam Alliance.  Other partners in the include Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines.  So if any job action cancels your flight or disrupts it you could see yourself being booked on Delta or Continental.  And you thought the flights were full then, just wait until the nation’s fifth largest airline in the starts to see their schedule cut in half due to work stoppages or even a strike. 

Though a strike is not far fetched, the airline and their union labor groups tend to always find a last minute agreement.  Such agreements were reached in the last minute at US Airways and United Airlines when they were facing similar situations several years ago with their labor groups. 

What is hurting the airline the most is probably all the media attention.  If people worry that their flight might be affected, they might be more willing to book on another airline in which they see as more stable.  The sooner the airline can settle, fairly, with their flight attendants the quicker they can return to molding the airline back towards profitability. 

August 15 is the deadline that the union group has set as a deadline, just 7 days from now. 

Some Quotes are from Reuters.com