I know it’s August and all, but today is picketing day for my union, so I think it’s a good day to discuss what happened for me on Christmas to demonstrate the unfair labor practices of the airline industry in the US.
I don’t know if you all remember, but basically the Pacific Northwest completely melted down on Christmas Eve 2022. It doesn’t snow or freeze all that often here in the PNW, so as a result we don’t have the plows and other equipment that I’m accustomed to in the midwest. The PNW always falls apart when there’s snow. The airline industry also falls apart. We don’t have enough plows, de-icers, or salt trucks to address snow and ice. Further, even if we did, some winter conditions simply are not safe to fly in.
Here’s what happened to me at Christmas time:
My company pays us 2x our normal pay rate for flying on Christmas Eve and Christmas. I volunteered to work these days because I have so much guilt about the piddly little money I bring into the household now that I’m a flight attendant. About a week before Christmas, Saign told me he thought I was very silly. He pointed out how low my pay is anyway. He said, “So if you get paid double on Christmas, you’ll make, like, $100 extra, right?” I thought about it for a moment, “Yes…” I said. “Is $100 worth missing Christmas?”
OH MY GOODNESS. I realized he was right. I was missing Christmas with my young daughter for $100. That WAS ridiculous. I decided that I had made a terrible mistake. At that point though, there was nothing to be done, I was going to have to work on Christmas, it was already on my schedule.
On December 23rd, I was able to self-assign a trip for Christmas Eve and Christmas. I was going to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Puerto Vallarta! Suddenly it felt like maybe I hadn’t made a terrible mistake. Maybe it would all be okay…
On Christmas Eve morning, I made my way to the airport. My first leg of the day was a 1 hour flight to Portland. From there I would fly to PVR.
I successfully made it to Portland, where ice was delaying flights, including the flight that I was supposed to work to Mexico. It turned into what is called a “rolling delay,” with the flight being pushed further and further back. Around 1 hour before the newest flight time, I made my way to the gates and met my crew (at that point, I had sat at the Portland airport for over 4 hours as the flight was continually delayed). While we were standing there, I looked at my company phone and saw that the flight to PVR was cancelled. My crew and I walked away and called Crew Scheduling to ask what we should do next. We reached a message stating that we would need to leave our number for a call back.
We then had to wait.
Not being able to contact Crew Scheduling put us into a holding pattern: According to our contract, we must remain at the airport until we are released by Crew Scheduling, but…we couldn’t reach Crew Scheduling to be released.
Many of the crew around me were upset because while they were “pay protected,” meaning they would get paid for the hours of flying they were missing, but holiday pay is NOT pay protected so they would not get the double pay they had been counting on.
Meanwhile, as a reserve flight attendant, I was NOT pay protected. During the hours I spent at the airport, I reviewed our contract and I couldn’t figure out if I would even be paid anything. According to our contract, I am supposed to be given a hotel room if I have more than 4 hours between flights, but since Crew Scheduling was non-contactable, I was not given a hotel room. The automated system assumed I had been given a hotel room, so listed me as being off-duty, despite the fact that I was still on-duty. Because I was essentially abandoned at the airport, I wasn’t sure if I would be paid at all for the time I spent waiting to be released by Crew Scheduling.
About an hour after our flight was cancelled, both my company AND the Portland Airport put out statements on their websites saying that there would be no more flights leaving Portland that day. While I still couldn’t speak to Crew Scheduling, other flight attendants in my company were ahead of me in the phone queue and did speak to Crew Scheduling. They were told they had to remain at the airport, “In case we need to put you on another flight.” When these flight attendants pointed out that no flights would be leaving PDX per both the airport and our company, they were told that this was inaccurate and they would have to remain at the airport.
So there we sat, trapped. If we left, we’d risk getting fired for leaving. I had no place to go anyway, because Crew Scheduling hadn’t given me a hotel.
In total, I sat at the airport for 10 hours. After 10 hours, Crew Scheduling finally called one of my crew members who made sure they arranged a hotel for all of us.
At 11:00pm that night, Crew Scheduling called me and asked me if I needed anything, since I had put my number in for a call back. I explained that I needed to be marked as “on-duty” for the entire time I was stuck at the airport since I wasn’t offered a hotel.
I spent a long time that evening contacting my union reviewing the problem with contacting Crew Scheduling and requesting compensation. In the end? I got paid half-pay for the 10 hours I was trapped at the airport. To clarify, half-pay is below Oregon’s (and Washington’s) minimum wage. I spent Christmas Eve away from my family getting paid below the legal minimum wage.
So…how do airlines get away with paying its employees so poorly? An archaic law called the Railway Act allows airlines and railway companies to mistreat their employees. In this case, I was paid below minimum wage for the time I was trapped. On a normal work day, I spend plenty of time “on duty” while getting paid nothing.
And that, my friends, is why I spent today picketing in the heat with thousands of my colleagues to bring attention to the poor work conditions and pay that we tolerate as our company and shareholders make insane profits. Please support your flight attendants, many of whom are in a stalemate with their companies as we attempt to just get treated like normal American employees.
Also: I do not plan to volunteer as tribute for Christmas 2023. Lesson learned.
Adventure Fam 
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