When American Airlines started to charge a $2 fee for curbside baggage check-in, the skycaps lost their tips. Passengers were accustomed to paying $2 or so, it seems, and weren’t going to amp up the cash flow just because the money was going into a different pocket. So, nine Logan Airport skycaps – current and former – just came into $325,000, thanks to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled based on a law intended to protect wages and tips.
American Airlines tried to get by on a technicality, saying eight of the nine skycaps were subcontractors (working for G2 Secure Staff) and thus weren’t protected. The court disagreed, favoring broader protection. But, it isn’t over yet. American Airlines, according to a report in USA Today, is evaluating “all of its legal options.”
Hawaiian Airlines put up the best on-time results in June, with Delta subsidiary Comair at the other end of the spectrum. Continental had the fewest delays among the legacy carriers (those that had a large footprint before airline deregulation in 1978), and American Airlines was at the bottom of the barrel for this category.
Unsurprisingly, weather, equipment problems and airport congestion were cited as the most frequent reasons for flight delays. To count as a delay, a flight must be more than 15 minutes late – canceled and diverted flights also count. Through most of the year, flight delays fell largely because airlines were cutting routes and servicing fewer passengers.
Mishandled baggage fell, as well, year-over-year, though it was up from May to June. Reports were down 20 percent from June 2008 to June 2009. AirTran had the fewest gripes from passenger. American Eagle (a unit of American Airlines) had the most.
Dudu Nobre, a Brazilian singer, has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines. He, his wife and producer are looking for $4 million in damages, claiming that flight attendants used racial slurs when talking to him and that they stabbed his producer with a sharp pen. So, the next time you’re wondering what could make the long flight from Sao Paulo to New York worse, in a world where amenities and seat space are declining seemingly daily, Nobre is equipped to let you know.
One flight attendant is said to have called Nobre a monkey repeatedly in Portuguese during the flight – pushing it further by making monkey-like sounds. Apparently, these sounds are the closest thing to comment, as American Airlines is remaining tight-lipped.
There’s a recent CNN article about a flight attendant who became ill after working a flight back in 2007. Her illness is alarming.
First, she felt as though she were coming down with a cold; then her nasal discharge was a neon green — the color of antifreeze! Since then, she claims to have suffered chronic migraine headaches, tingling in her feet, loss of balance and vision problems.
These health problems did not happen without warning. Right before her ailments started, the attendant noticed a “misty haze type of smoke” in the cabin of the American Airlines MD-82 plane. The haze occurred right after the plane landed and was heading to the gate.
The flight attendant’s visit to a neurologist confirmed she had been exposed to toxins. Because her condition is so bad, and she blames the airplane’s design for the toxins, she’s suing Boeing, the maker of the vessel. According to the lawsuit, the “bleed air” had been contaminated.
Bleed air is recirculated cabin air that’s mixed with the air pulled into the engines during a flight. The air that goes through the engine is cooled and compressed before being used in the cabin. The danger of bleed air being contaminated is small, however: according to the CNN article that presents a detailed account of the attendant’s story, one study has found that airplanes can have a fume leak 0.05% of the time. What causes a fume leak is unclear, but one idea is a leaky seal.
Currently, there aren’t conclusions about what caused this particular attendant’s sickness. She had flown for 17 years without any problems. Her case is not the only one where an attendant has become sick allegedly because of airplane air. Some pilots have also reported becoming ill, as have passengers.
The article also points out that because people’s immune systems differ, not everyone will be affected by toxins in the same way; many people may not be affected at all. It is also good to know that there are more studies being conducted to find out more about toxins in airplanes and what should and can be done to minimize the threat. The idea of being afflicted with neon green nasal discharge is not appealing.
Airlines rely on you to have minor and major personal crises. Everything from changed meeting dates to family emergencies generate around $2 billion in change and cancellation fees a year, according to the Department of Transportation. That’s pretty much twice the amount the airlines pull in from extra bag fees – a measure that’s already been lauded by the Wall Street set for its impact on the airlines’ finances. For American Airlines parent AMR, for example, change and cancellation penalties came to $116 million for the first quarter of the year, while baggage fees amounted to $108 million.
These penalties, lamented almost universally by passengers, upped airline passenger revenue by 3.2 percent in the United States. As usual, business travelers get screwed most (probably because they travel most. They paid the bulk of $527.6 million in first quarter change fees.
Even with fewer people climbing onto planes this year, increases in penalty amounts have led to a net gain in revenue for airlines from this type of fee. A number of the larger airlines upped their change fees from $100 to $150. JetBlue moved it from $40 to $100 – and saw first quarter fees surge 29 percent, from $25 million to $32.2 million, relative to the first quarter of 2008.
These change fees are actually pretty important. With the money they bring in, airlines can offer discounts elsewhere, financed by the extra income. And, they make it more attractive for passengers to buy full-fare tickets, that way they have a bit more flexibility. The more expensive tickets benefit the passenger … and of course, the airline.