This time of year, I have always felt for flight attendants with young children. Not because they have to work some holidays away from home, but because so many have to do it year after year after year. I’m almost always gone, and that’s hard enough when I don’t even have children. I have nieces I’m extremely close to, though, and this is the first year they specifically asked for me, in advance, to be there Christmas Day. Of course, I won’t be. There were tears involved. It was hard.
This is the first time I had to look them in the eyes and tell them no.
So I broke the holiday news to my nieces. One was crying saying she couldn’t wait to see me for Christmas. I grimaced,”Uh, about that…”
— Sarah Steegar (@FATravelWriter) December 11, 2015
Worst part was she took a deep breath, lifted her chin & said, “That’s ok, Aunt Sarah. At least we have Christmas Eve.” Uh, about that…
— Sarah Steegar (@FATravelWriter) December 11, 2015
I really don’t know how crew parents do it every year – especially the ones who work for airlines that, at least for crews, act like the holidays are just like any other trip.
The holiday travel season is tough for airlines, too. Planes are as packed as they can possibly get. Extra flights are added to the schedules to meet the climax of yearly burgeoning demand. They have so many people giving them money to do what they do – right as so many employees desperately don’t want to be at work. Let’s be honest: it can’t be a coincidence that the sick list is always longest at this at this time of year.
You might be surprised how little most airlines do to alleviate the rub. We know working holidays is part of the deal when we start, but few new hires, full of their excitement and optimism for the job, can truly look 20 years into the future and fathom having missed all their (very possibly not-even-yet-existent) kids’ Christmases. The crazy thing is, it’s the exact same passenger demand/staffing crunch every year, and every single year many airlines try the same thing over and over to ameliorate the issue. What’s that? They simply send out stern letters and double the consequences that one receives for being absent. What I want to know is if it’s that important, why don’t they try a reward for being there?
A few do, and you can probably guess which.* High fives to Southwest, Alaska Airlines, and JetBlue, who all pay crews double time for holiday work. These three airlines are known to have relatively happy labor and we can see why. They have the customer service reputations to match.
Of the big three, Delta’s on top – again not much of a surprise – offering $20 extra per hour plus a rough doubling of per diem for the holiday trip. United is next, with a split situation of showcasing both the best and worst practices. “United side” flight attendants get a decent gesture of holiday pay using a formula to determine the value (“hourly rate of pay times the credited flight time for the ID, divided by the number of hours away from home, times the number of hours away from home falling within the holiday”). It shakes out to something like double pay for a one-day trip and time-and-a-half for three-day trips.
That’s the end of what I found for true holiday pay, and by that, I mean companies that choose to:
reflect the heightened value of reliable staffing over the period with increased pay
and
attempt to relieve staffing issues by making it attractive to choose holiday shifts.
Isn’t that a win-win?
Most other airlines insist on disagreeing. The “Continental-side” flight attendants of United are on the other side of the “holiday work appreciation” scene, juxtaposing their colleagues’ wordy formula with … nothing.
American Airlines also outlines both best-and-worst scenarios, but in its own way. Their flight attendants were long in the Absolutely Nothing camp until this year when they will finally receive a flat $75 for working Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve no matter how long the trip and, some would point out, at the cost of gutting understaffing compensation. Pre-merger, the US Airways flight attendants had a substantial, United-style formula. Ouch. (Then again, that may or may not be offset by their bigger holiday schedule disaster – well underplayed in this article – and subsequent payoff.)
Many European carriers seem to just double per diem pay for the trip, like Air France and Scandinavian Airlines do, seemingly for the purpose to going towards the layover’s holiday meal. At Porter Airlines, this is explicit – the captain can be reimbursed for up to $50 per crew member for a meal (provided you eat together, it would seem). Sure, these are gestures, and I don’t mean to dismissive, but let’s be honest – no one thinks a free dinner is worth missing Christmas.
It is better than the big round of “we get nothing”s that come next. That list is long and frustrating to me, ranging from GoJet to Qantas, including Middle Eastern airlines (some technically aren’t even allowed to acknowledge holidays), to Asian carriers such as Singapore, and Jet Airways (even if Christmas, per se, wouldn’t be their big travel holiday).
Holiday operations will cost more either way, between paying reserves and understaffing as well as what it “costs” in the long run for employees to feel exploited year after year. Could it really be so expensive to just incentivize dependability over the critical period instead? Isn’t it cost-efficient for employees to feel like they’re seen as human, like their families matter, too?
This isn’t just true for airlines, although we have some obviously unique needs (e.g. if crews don’t show up, the “product” actually cancels). I think the same for you, too. Whatever your job, and whatever holiday it is that means “family time” to you, I hope you feel you’re shown some form of true appreciation if you sacrifice it for work. Especially if it involves you having to make little kids cry with disappointment, even the Grinch knows it’s the least you deserve.
*Note that the landscape of these details is varied and changes often. If I have any incorrect info please drop me a line at CrewedTalk@flyertalk.com for a correction.
[Photo: Getty]