Spirit flight attendants picket at Fort Lauderdale airport over working conditions
Citing poor working conditions and airline operational “meltdowns,” a group of unionized Spirit Airlines flight attendants protested Tuesday by toting signs at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
A top union official cited instances of Spirit’s flight attendants having to sleep on airport floors after completing 20- to 30-hour shifts, only to return to duty shortly thereafter. Federal Aviation Administration guidelines were proposed in October 2021 requiring attendants to get a minimum of 10 hours rest between shifts.
“We’ve had issues where we’re not getting hotel rooms after working for 20 to 30 hours,” said Don Intreglia, vice president of Spirit’s master executive council of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) union. “When we do get to those hotel rooms, we may get four or five hours of sleep at best.”
About 1,600 of Spirit’s nearly 4,000 flight attendants work at the Fort Lauderdale airport, its home site and busiest market since the airline is based not far away in Miramar in Broward County.
On April 10, the unhappy workers started holding similar demonstrations and have now held them at Orlando, Dallas, Las Vegas and Detroit airports.
The sporadic picketing won’t stop until Spirit’s management “stops violating our contract, proves that they will take real action to improve the reliability of the airline,” Intreglia said.
“They’ve made small steps. However, we continue with no answers and support when these meltdowns happen.”
Multiple attempts to reach a Spirit corporate communications official Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Union officials said the Fort Lauderdale airport picketing came after Spirit delayed 40% of its flight schedule Sunday and canceled over 30% of its flights last month due to bad weather in Florida.
The airline has had four such mass cancellation events since August, leaving passengers and flight attendants stranded in airports, the officials said.
The flight attendants who are left to contend with angry airport passengers in these situations are experiencing a different kind of stormy weather, Intreglia said.
Teri Davison, president of Spirit Airlines union Local Council 78, said flight attendants lacking rest can’t properly take care of their airplane passengers.
She said that the poor working conditions are “shutting down the whole system” and that
“[they’re] wreaking havoc everywhere.”
The timing of the union’s aggravation with Spirit coincides with the airline trying to fend off an unsolicited takeover bid from JetBlue Airways while it’s in the process of merging with rival lowcost carrier Frontier Airlines.
Intreglia reinforced the importance of the picketing at Fort Lauderdale airport, where Spirit is the biggest carrier. The airline employs 3,400 workers across South Florida, including the flight attendants.
The picketing that began in Orlando will continue nationwide until the union gets desired results from Spirit’s management or they are forced to walk off the job, the union leader said.
“We’re going to continue to be out here picketing at airports across the country until we see an end to the repeated contract violations, and also an end to these massive irregular operations and meltdowns,” Intreglia said.
In recent months, Spirit hired 1,500 flight attendants but lost about 800 of them after they experienced poor working conditions, he said.