U.S. flight attendants working at ‘wit’s end’
As stranded Spirit Airlines travelers grew desperate at San Juan Airport in Puerto Rico during a chaotic night of cancellations on Aug. 1, banging on a gate door and yelling at staff, police officers rounded up the airline’s cabin crews to hide them.
A 28-year-old flight attendant recounted being rushed to a jet bridge, behind a secure metal door, and then later to an office on the tarmac.
There, about 35 Spirit employees were told by a manager to change out of their uniforms for their safety.
“We were scared,” said the attendant, who asked not to be identified by name because of the airline’s media policy. “I’ve seen some crazy stuff, but this moved into No. 1.”
Air travelers have faced an unusually high number of disruptions this summer because of widespread labor shortages, bad weather and technical problems. Nearly a quarter of U.S. passenger planes between June and mid-August were delayed, while almost 4 percent of flights were canceled in the first half of August, according to data from Flight Aware, a flight track
ing service. Spirit alone canceled nearly 2,500 flights between Aug. 1-15.
Flight attendants across the country say they are struggling to cope, facing not only these prolonged operational issues, but also an increase in aggressive passenger behavior. Nearly 4,000 unruly passenger incidents have been reported to the Federal Aviation Administration in 2021, a figure described by the agency as “a rapid and significant increase.”
Most of those reports deal with attendants enforcing rules on proper masking in the cabin, with passengers who range from careless to belligerent, and at times verbally or physically abusive. Shaky, vertical footage of brawls and insults are now a familiar staple on social media.
A 28-year-old American Airlines flight attendant who asked not to be identified for fear of losing her job said she had law enforcement called following verbal assaults twice since June, after six years of flying with no incidents. Both confrontations were related to mask enforcement.
“What really hurts are the people who won’t even look at you in the eye,” she said. “I don’t even feel like a human anymore.”
In interviews with more than a dozen attendants from major and regional carriers, crew members said they were getting squeezed on both sides — from passengers and the airlines. They described regularly working shifts of more than 14 hours, being assigned up to four or five flights a day, not being given sufficient time to sleep and being deterred from taking leave if fatigued or unwell.
The tense situation in the air this summer has led many attendants to say that they feel exhausted, afraid for their personal safety and, in some cases, concerned that the situation could turn dangerous.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants union that represents nearly 50,000 flight attendants at 17 airlines, noted that the difference in passenger response to the pandemic compared with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has been “night and day.”
Twenty years ago, “every single person who came on our plane was completely on our team,” she said. But now, flight attendants have become “punching bags for the public.”
Staffing shortage
This spring, as vaccination rates increased, coronavirus cases dropped and restrictions melted away, demand for summer travel rebounded more quickly than many had expected. On July 1, 2.1 million air travelers passed through Transportation Security Administration airport checkpoints, even more than on the same day in 2019. Many airlines ramped up their scheduling and added new routes.
But while airlines are eager to capitalize on the demand, many appear to lack the staffing to keep up.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics data show that the number of full-time-equivalent employees at U.S. scheduled passenger airlines was nearly 14 percent lower in June 2021 than in March 2020. Tens of thousands of flight attendants took leave during the pandemic, the AFA union said. American Airlines said about 3,300 flight attendants have yet to return from leave.
“There’s not enough people,” said Nas Lewis, a flight attendant with a major U.S. airline and founder of th|AIR|apy, a website and Facebook group that addresses flight attendants’ mental health. Lewis, who asked that the name of her airline not be published because of its media policy, said the situation generates anxiety for attendants “because we don’t know what we’re going to deal with on any given day.”
A shortage of pilots is another critical pain point for air travel, as is inadequate numbers of gate agents, baggage handlers and delivery drivers, all of which can easily throw a wrench into getting a flight out on time.
When a cabin is shortstaffed, the airlines depend on on-call, or “reserve,” flight attendants. This summer, airlines have been stretching their reserves to the maximum, to the point where they are running low or out of available attendants before the day has even begun.
Flight attendants have a maximum number of hours that they can be assigned to work, although many say scheduling teams are increasingly pressuring them to accept longer and longer shifts. When an attendant exceeds the maximum hours, it is known colloquially as “going illegal.”
Attendants say it has become difficult to push back.
Leave discouraged
A video circulating online earlier this month of Frontier flight attendants duct taping a belligerent passenger to his seat made news reports and shocked viewers. While this is an extreme incident, attendants and unions say that encountering unruly passengers, once rare, is now almost expected.
An FAA spokeswoman said that before 2021, the numbers of disturbances were fairly consistent year over year, with the agency investigating on average less than 150 incidents annually. As of Aug. 23, the FAA has launched investigations into 693 incidents in 2021.
“You would think a pandemic affecting a ton of people would cause people to maybe pause and be more compassionate to each other,” said Petzel, the American Airlines attendant. “For whatever reason, it’s made it go the complete other way.”
Flight attendants across many airlines say the situation is wearing on their mental health and physical well-being.
“I have never experienced this level of anxiety, depression in my entire life,” said the 28-year-old flight attendant who works for American. “We’re really breaking down.”
Many attendants say they fear retribution for taking leave, especially now.
Some airlines have a point-based attendance policy, whereby if a flight attendant has an unplanned absence when scheduled to work (say, because they call in sick), they accrue a point. Too many points can trigger an investigation or even termination.
Mental health woes
Normally, Southwest Airlines is contractually obliged to let attendants call in sick without requiring a physician’s note. But the company can invoke an “emergency sick-call procedure,” requiring staff to verify their illness with a company doctor. Southwest has invoked this policy three times this summer.
The union and attendants said they felt that these doctors could be dismissive of symptoms. Staff also may not feel comfortable seeing the airline’s doctor, especially if dealing with mental health concerns.
“Our mental health has never been more disrupted than now, obviously since 9/ 11,” said a 30-year-old flight attendant for Southwest, who asked not to be identified for fear of losing her job. “You can’t even call out sick if you’re having major anxiety or depression episodes. It doesn’t matter.”
Lewis, of th|AIR|apy, said in May she was shoved by a hostile passenger who was upset about an overbooked flight. She did not report the incident, she said, because she was too exhausted.
“As flight attendants, we are at our wits’ end,” she said.