AeroBlogger

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Press Release:

US Airways (NYSE: LCC) today announced that it has reached a tentative agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement with the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), which represents the airline’s 6,700 mainline flight attendants. Details of the agreement will be made available by AFA.

“We are very pleased to have reached a tentative agreement with the AFA and thank the union leadership for their dedication in support of our flight attendants,” said Doug Parker, Chairman and CEO.

“We want to express our appreciation to the National Mediation Board and our mediator Jim MacKenzie, for his instrumental role in helping both parties reach a successful conclusion to our mediated negotiation sessions,” said Al Hemenway, US Airways’ vice president, Labor. “I would also like to thank the leadership of AFA for their hard work in helping us reach a tentative agreement with our exceptional flight attendants.”

The AFA Master Executive Counsel’s (MEC’s) must first approve the tentative agreement before it can be sent to its members for consideration. This first step is expected to take place in the coming weeks. The tentative agreement would cover the airline’s 6,700 mainline flight attendants, who are based in US Airways’ three hub cities of Phoenix, Philadelphia, Charlotte, N.C., and in its Washington D.C. focus city.

6 full years after US Airways and America West merged, the flight attendants have finally gotten a joint contract. This will give US Airways more scheduling flexibility, and will presumably get the flight attendants their first pay raise in 9 years. It’ll certainly be an interesting analysis to see what the terms of the deal are…
Perhaps the pilots will be next?

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American Airlines is having problems with the new Department of Transportation disclosure rules that came into effect yesterday. A warning on its website says that the airline is having technical difficulties and the initial fares don’t include taxes and fees.

Given the DOT’s recent streak of fining airlines for violations, I’d guess that a fine will be American’s fate too. Whether they will ever pay it is a different question – bankruptcy protection will make it very hard for the DOT to collect any fine…

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Happy Republic Day to all the Indians out there!

To celebrate, a group of Finnair cabin crew danced to “Om Shanti Om” aboard Finnair’s flight to Delhi before the flight took off.

Ms. Helena Kaartinen, the crew-member of Finnair who coordinated this event, explained how it happened on the Finnair Blog.

This is great marketing, which will likely give Finnair free advertising airtime in India, and endear itself to its Indian customers.

Finnair is no stranger to using social media to improve its branding. Last year, they launched their Singapore route by having an Angry Birds competition on-board, which went viral.

This also reminds me of the Cebu Pacific flight attendants who greatly increased awareness of the airline with their dancing, which also went viral.

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Alaska Airlines Prayer Card; Source: AirlineMeals.net

Yesterday, Alaska Airlines announced that the prayer cards that it hands out to passengers on meal trays will be discontinued beginning February 1st. This is an excellent decision that will probably work out very well for them.

The prayer cards were started over 30 years ago as a way to “differentiate the product” of Alaska Airlines. For years, it worked out well for them, with largely positive comments. However, the demographic of their passengers has changed, and now the prayer cards are the source of more complaints than compliments for Alaska.

From a business point of view, neutrality on highly personal topics like religion is generally a good idea. No business wants to offend customers, and expressing a preference for a specific religion is an easy way to turn people off. Very few people will decide not to fly Alaska because the prayer cards are being discontinued, but people who were offended by the “proselytizing” might give Alaska another shot.

Cutting the prayer cards is also a cost savings for Alaska. Not having to pay for the prayer cards means that Alaska can marginally improve their margins. In an industry where airlines are lucky to even break even, every dollar counts.

Wall Street seems to like the news, with Alaska’s stock price jumping over 1.5% as well. I guess they came to the same conclusion – prayer cards did more harm than good. Kudos to Alaska for making a good business decision.