KEY POINTS:
- Southwest Airlines is the latest airline to address that issue and is planning to resume hiring flight attendants in the coming weeks, according to note to cabin crews, which was seen by CNBC.
- “In order to support future operational needs, all Flight Attendants have been recalled to work effective June 1, and we will need to hire Flight Attendants in the immediate future,” said the staff note.
- Southwest has begun reaching out to candidates who had conditional job offers when the pandemic froze hiring last year.
- Rivals including American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have recently announced they plan to resume hiring pilots this year, in hopes they will be able to cater to a rise in travel demand in the coming years, while hundreds of aviators near the federally mandated retirement age of 65.
KEY POINTS:
- “I am highly skeptical of the latest business venture to be announced by Norse’s executives, who have spent years trying to game the system, skirt rigorous safety rules, and undermine workers’ rights. ALPA remains strongly opposed to any efforts that erode fair labor standards and seek to gain a competitive advantage by dodging established international agreements.
- “As we have for years, ALPA rejects any business model that plays one country’s regulatory and safety standards off another in order to evade labor rights, as these practices endanger safety and put U.S. jobs at risk. We will vigorously oppose Norse’s attempt to obtain Department of Transportation approval to operate into the United States if its ‘brand new’ airline is just another bait-and-switch flag-of-convenience scheme, and we are confident that this administration will vigorously enforce our trade agreements, defend collective bargaining rights, and protect American jobs.”
KEY POINTS:
- Four people are facing nearly $70,000 in civil fines for clashing with airline crews over mask requirements and other safety instructions on recent flights, part of what the Federal Aviation Administration called a “disturbing increase” in the number of unruly passengers who have returned to the skies with the easing of pandemic restrictions.
- The latest round of proposed fines, which passengers have 30 days to contest, came just days after the F.A.A. said that it had received more than 1,300 unruly-passenger reports from airlines since February.
- In the previous decade, the agency said, it took enforcement actions against 1,300 passengers total.
- One of the passengers, a woman who was traveling from the Dominican Republic on a JetBlue flight bound for New York on Feb. 7, refused to comply with instructions to wear a mask aboard the plane, hurled an empty liquor bottle that almost hit another passenger, threw food and shouted obscenities at flight attendants, according to the F.A.A.
- “It has been an exhausting time for all the employees who are just trying to do their job according to their company’s policies,” the woman, Angela Hagedorn, said on April 26. “The constant arguing and pushback from guests, it’s ridiculous.”
KEY POINTS:
- Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have added flights to the three mainstream European countries open to Americans: Iceland, Croatia, and Greece.
- All three countries are welcoming US tourists with proof of vaccination, with some also allowing for just a negative COVID-19 test.
- American Airlines hasn’t been as nimble, focusing more on South America and only launching flights to Greece and Israel for the summer.
