Attendants face unfriendly skies
Nearly 1 in 5 say they experienced physical sexual harassment, and they don’t see airlines addressing it.
Despite the growth of the #MeToo movement, nearly 1 in 5 flight attendants say they have been the victims of physical sexual harassment in the last year — and they say they have seen no efforts by their managers to address the problem.
A survey of more than 3,500 flight attendants from 29 airlines in the U.S. found that 35% of flight attendants say they have experienced verbal harassment, with 18% saying they have been physically abused by passengers over the last year.
According to the survey released by the Assn. of Flight Attendants-CWA, 68% of flight attendants have experienced some form of sexual harassment during their careers. But only 7% of flight attendants who have experienced abuse have reported it, the survey found.
Those flight attendants who have been physically harassed say it includes having their breasts, buttocks and crotch area “touched, felt, pulled, grabbed, groped, slapped, rubbed and fondled,” according to the survey.
More than two-thirds of flight attendants say they noticed no efforts by their employers to address the problem in the last year.
“Flight attendants must be confident that airline executives will back them up when they respond to and report harassment of crew and passengers,” said Sara Nelson, president of the association, which represents 42,000 flight attendants from 19 airlines.
Harassment of flight attendants is nothing new. In decades past, flight attendants were nearly all young women who often were forced to wear tight, revealing outfights. Today, flight attendants — about 20% are men — are considered the first line of defense during an onboard emergency, Nelson said.
Some airlines have taken action against harassment.
About a month ago, Alaska Airlines Chief Executive Brad Tilden dispatched an online post to his employees, saying the carrier is adding training to help protect flight attendants and passengers from being the victims of assault or harassment.
“To be clear, sexual harassment and assault have absolutely no place in our workplace, on board our flights, or any place,” he said in the post.
Delta Air Lines says it has also added training for new and existing employees to cut back on such incidents.
The chief executives of United Airlines, American Airlines and Spirit Airlines have issued messages to their employees in the last few months, condemning harassment in the workplace.
The nation’s airlines have adopted no industrywide policy for addressing passengers who harass flight attendants. If the harassment is extreme, crew members can accuse a passenger of interfering with the duties of the crew on a commercial flight — a federal crime that can result in civil or criminal penalties, said Taylor Garland, a spokeswoman for the flight attendants union.
Alaska Airlines took a different approach to the problem this year when it banned a San Diego man from flying on the carrier following allegations that he harassed a flight attendant — an accusation he said is unfounded and is “reverse discrimination against men.”
Spirit testing onboard Wi-Fi
Ultra-low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines has announced plans to offer onboard wireless internet on all of its planes by next summer — a first for the carrier known for its low fares and fees for its a la carte services.
Spirit may also be launching a first among U.S. airlines by planning to charge a fee for the Wi-Fi service based on the popularity of a route.
“We are testing this out,” said Stephen Schuler, a Spirit spokesman. “We want to see what people want.”
The move may not come as a surprise to Spirit passengers who already pay a bag fee that varies based on when they pay and on the route they fly.
Spirit, which typically has the lowest base fares on the routes it serves, is considered an industry pioneer in dreaming up new fees for onboard extras. For example, Spirit is one of the few airlines to charge $2 to print out a boarding pass at an airport kiosk.
Most U.S. airlines charge Wi-Fi fees for a one-hour period or for a 24-hour period, with some carriers even offering a rate that lets passengers connect on the airline for an entire month. Some airlines, such as Alaska, Delta and American, let passengers use the onboard Wi-Fi service to send text messages for free.
Schuler said the pricing policy for Spirit’s Wi-Fi service has not been set. Still, he said the airline expects to charge an average of about $6.50 per passenger, with prices rising or falling based on the popularity of the route. Passengers will know the price when they try to connect to the onboard Wi-Fi server.
That might mean that Wi-Fi on a Florida flight from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando might be more expensive than Wi-Fi on a less-popular route, Schuler said.
Spirit is teaming up with the Thales Group, a French multinational, to provide the new satellite-based, high-speed internet service. The airline says it will increase the speed in 2021, with the launch of a new satellite built by a Thales subsidiary.