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The airlines are now demanding concessions from all employees as part of their back-to-profit business plans. On paper this makes sense, but the public has not been made aware of the degree of sacrifice this involves for one specific group of airline employees: flight attendants.

Recently I spoke with an American Airlines flight attendant who told me they will be taking a 34 percent pay cut this month. The 34% includes cuts in medical coverage and other benefits; the actual salary cut American flight attendants are now taking is 15.5%.

Let's put this in context. A salary cut from what?

Flight attendants earn less than the unskilled laborers who clean the airplanes.

Airport security workers earn about twice what a newly-hired flight attendant does.

A pilot on a Los Angeles to Auckland (New Zealand) turnaround earns more in those four days than a new flight attendant earns in half a year in flight pay, which only clocks in after the aircraft leaves the gate.

Flight attendant pay is divided into "flight pay" and "ground pay."

International flight attendants must be at the airport 90 minutes before scheduled departure. For 45 minutes of that time, flight attendants are earning only $2 per hour. (The airlines have found a way to skirt the minimum wage law, and the AFA, the largest flight attendant union, has sanctioned this egregious practice for decades. And now United is reducing the $2-per-hour ground pay to $1.75.)

For the remaining 45 minutes before takeoff, flight attendants are paid nothing.

This is not idle time. Flight attendants board their planes before the passengers do to check the food supplies, emergency equipment such as life rafts and fire extinguishers, and medical equipment such as defibrillators. They make sure the cabin has been cleaned and that no weapons are concealed on the plane.

As passengers board, flight attendants assist them with seat changes, carryons, and all special needs -- wheelchairs, the elderly, babies, pregnant passengers, tall passengers, wide bodies, smokers, first-class passengers who have been assigned seats in coach and need their egos massaged, and coach passengers trying to sneak into first class who need to be gently brought back to the realities of the class system. Cabin crews handle all these tasks off the payroll.

After landing, when a flight attendant escorts an unaccompanied minor off the plane and sometimes must wait with the child for lengthy periods of time, it's at the $2-per-hour rate for 30 minutes, and then unpaid ground time after that.

The unpaid ground time that every flight attendant accrues adds up to over 100 hours per year. Is there any other industry that requires every employee to donate 100 hours of free labor per year?

Now let's look at actual flight time. Since 9-11, it has taken on a sinister edge. Today's flight attendants are required to "protect the integrity of the cockpit and to use all available resources to thwart an attempted hijacking."

Yet, as today's flight attendants carry out their new security roles, they are still expected to perform their original air-hostess duties impeccably. Imagine asking Marines who are patrolling enemy territory on their bellies, ready to subdue the enemy at a moment's notice by any means necessary, to simultaneously operate a refreshment stand in that same field of battle, being sure to put forth a winning smile.

"Would you like a pillow? Oh, excuse me, I have to wrestle a knife away from the passenger in 24A and extinguish the fuses on his shoe bomb. Can you wait a moment for that pillow? Thank you."

Flight attendant work is more than waitressing. It encompasses aircraft blowouts six miles high, delivering babies in the sky, intuiting the presence of terrorists who fly, and coping on a daily basis with sleep deprivation, low oxygen, industrial-strength galactic radiation, and flying troops into war zones without hazard pay. (I put in my hours flying into Vietnam; today cabin crews serve troops going to and from Kuwait.)

The airlines are already requiring that flight attendants perform like Navy Seals, but on a Wal-Mart salary. Even though airline finances are pressed at this time, I feel it is entirely appropriate for flight attendants to now receive a substantial increase in pay. Today's flight attendants are front line warriors. An increase in pay, not a giveback, is the way to go.

FROM READERS

"I can not begin to tell you how very greatful I am for finding your web sight. There needs to be legislation passed to protect crews. I have personally reported unsafe pairings, crew rest issues, FAA rulings, etc. This week I had an eleven-hour day (Tusan-Houston-Raliegh Duram and back). On my feet the whole time, but got paid for less than 8 hours. No breaks for breakfast, lunch or dinner, either! I have called IRS and asked, 'If the company requires us to preform a company function, such as deplaning and cleaning the plane during turns, why can't we write it off on our taxes as a charitable contribution?' No deal. Seems there is no protection for us. We have no protection under fair Labor Laws or Osha. Help!. We are at risk, which makes the public at risk." -AW