American Airlines Triples Holiday Pay For Flight Attendants

American Airlines decided to triple the holiday pay for flight attendants to avoid staffing shortages during the holiday season. The triple pay offer for flight attendants is open to those doing holiday trips who can also have perfect attendance until early January.

The offer comes after American Airlines canceled numerous flights last weekend. Many of those canceled flights were due to shortages in flight attendants.  Overall, American Airline canceled more than 2,000 flights in a span of 4 days. The triple holiday pay shows that American is willing to avoid a repeat of last weekend.

Tripled Holiday Pay for Flight Attendants

American announced that flight attendants and reserve cabin crew working trips from November 23 to November 29, and December 22 until January 2 will get time-and-a-half according to their internal memo. If flight attendants will have perfect attendance from November 15 to January 2, they get another 150% pay on those trips.

In a staff note by American COO David Seymour, “To ensure we’re providing certainty for both our customers and team members, we’re doubling down on our efforts related to our schedule and staffing”.

As for other workgroups, they will get pay incentives according to Seymour.

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants negotiated with the company regarding the cabin crew’s pay incentives. According to the union, flight attendants experienced frequent rescheduling, and problems getting a hotel room and transportation this summer.  Aside from frequent rescheduling-related concerns, the union also raised its concerns regarding the number of unruly passengers.

Staffing Shortages

To cut airline costs last year, workers took voluntary leaves of absence or accepted buyouts. However, when travel demand returned around late spring and summer, airlines had to deal with staffing problems. The staffing shortages were compounded by weather problems.

This isn’t the first time flight attendants were incentivized to work during the holiday. Southwest flight attendants during the 4^th of July weekend received double pay from the carrier.