The world is traveling again. Summer air travel is expected to surpass pre-pandemic levels in 2023, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and airline revenues are back to near record levels.
But for airline workers – who suffered the brunt of pandemic shutdowns and then the spike in air rage that followed – unresolved labor issues remain and many are warning that for passengers those issues, which have led to a surge in operational problems, remain and are likely to cause more concerns this holiday season.
Dirty planes are just one of the issues travelers are likely to face, according to Rosa Sanchez, an airplane cabin cleaner for airline contractor Swissport, which provides service for several airlines at Logan airport in Boston. Understaffing and a lack of adequate protective equipment has driven high turnover rates and undermined the effectiveness of her and her co-workers’ ability to properly clean planes, she said. She said they are also constantly rushed and not given enough time to clean the planes.
“Sometimes we don’t have enough supplies to clean, so we just use what we have or just use water. Sometimes we don’t have a mop, so we use the blankets left on airplanes by passengers to clean the floors,” said Sanchez. “Sometimes in the bathroom there will be blood on the floor, toilet, walls, and there is feces and urine on top of the toilet. When I don’t have enough gloves, I’ve had to wrap a blanket around my hand to clean the bathroom.”
She recounted an incident in 2022, when she was poked by a hypodermic needle left on a plane, continued working, and had to pay for medical care out of her own pocket afterwards.
“I was rushing to clean because we didn’t have enough people. I reached in and pulled my hand out of a seat pocket and the needle was sticking out of my finger,” she said. “They don’t value us, even though we value the work that we do for them.”
Sanchez and several workers at Swissport, the largest airport services provider in the US, have filed complaints against the company with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha). Swissport has refuted the claims, saying the company is in full compliance with labor regulations and that “the health and safety of all our employees is the highest priority for Swissport”.
The pandemic fundamentally changed the airline industry, said Gary Peterson, executive director of the office of the international president of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), and a licensed aircraft maintenance technician. While the industry’s economics may have recovered, workers and passengers are still suffering.
“The industry shifted, and it’s not what it once was. The airline executives, they look at numbers to see how to get in more seats, reducing the distance between seats – all of these things contribute to why there are problems with passengers in the air,” said Peterson. “There is no comfort in flying any more unless you’re in a first-class or business-class seat. If you’re in a coach-class seat, it’s brutal.”
Staffing issues for pilots and licensed mechanics have been exacerbated by lags in training due to Covid, and the use of pandemic bailout funds by airlines to buy out or force the early retirement of senior employees under the assumption there would be a pipeline of replacement workers at lower costs when travel demand rebounded, said Peterson.
But while Covid’s impact has exacerbated the situation, the worsening experience of many workers and passengers has a long history.
Airlines have long been known and criticized for tacking on fees to ticket prices for basics such as checking in luggage or a few extra inches of legroom.
In 2014, Columbia University professor Tim Wu characterized this trend among airlines as “calculated misery”, noting airlines have charged fees for basic services that used to be included with ticket prices and airplane seats have gotten smaller over the years, worsening the experience of air travel for passengers and workers.
Add into that mix the increased concentration and market power of a handful of airlines that now dominate the industry in the wake of deregulation, consolidation that occurred after 9/11, and outsourcing that has further deteriorated air travel service.
The pandemic increased this misery. Consumer complaints against airlines surged more than 300% compared with pre-pandemic levels in April 2022 amid operational issues, flight cancellations and delays roiling the airline industry.
For workers, complaints have revolved around degrading conditions and inadequate staffing and resources to do their jobs.
Peterson noted the airline industry has used staff shortages as an excuse to pursue policies such as pushing to reduce two-person pilot crews to one pilot – which unions have aggressively opposed over safety concerns – and the outsourcing of maintenance to foreign countries with fewer safety standards and regulations.
For flight attendants, the pandemic created staffing and operational issues for the workers that remained in the industry, conditions that have incited recent union organizing and legislative efforts.
Rasaq Adeyemi, a flight attendant at Delta and member of a union organizing committee with the Association of Flight Attendants, claimed the energy around the union campaign has surged in response to conditions and treatment of workers coming out of the pandemic. Delta is the last of the major airlines where flight attendants are currently not unionized.
Delta has claimed its direct relationship with employees is superior to unions. Workers say they need a union for protection against the company’s unilateral decisions, policies and cuts that have affected workers and their working conditions.
“Delta used to be a people-first company, but that’s not the case any more. We’re just numbers to them,” said Adeyemi.
He criticized a recent policy issued by Delta under which the names of flight attendants would be provided to passengers ahead of a flight. The customer recognition tool policy’s rollout was quickly paused after workers called it “unnecessary and frankly creepy” and the company apologized for the stress it had caused.
“There are a lot of harassment concerns around the policy, especially for female flight attendants,” said Adeyemi.
Flight attendants reported a surge in violence and abuse through the Covid pandemic that they say has continued. A union-backed “Assault won’t fly” campaign is pushing for federal legislation to enact and enforce a no-fly list for unruly passengers.
A 2021 survey found 84% of flight attendants had dealt with unruly passengers on board and 17% of respondents said they experienced a physical incident.
Cases of disruptive passengers investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration surged in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The number of reported incidents of assault against flight attendants and other airline workers increased from about 1,000 in 2020 to about 6,000 incidents in 2021.
“It has come down a little bit since the mask mandate has gone away but it’s still much, much higher than it was before,” said Thom McDaniel, a flight attendant at Southwest for 31 years and international vice-president with the TWU.
“Sometimes we think it’s a result of the frustrations that people have from being locked up during Covid or frustrations that they have from coming to the airport and finding out that they have extended delays, or whether their flights are canceled because some of the mismanagement that we’re seeing in the industry right now, and the things that haven’t been addressed.”
A series of events led Southwest to suffer an operational meltdown in December, resulting in the cancellation of over 16,700 flights and stranding 2 million passengers. McDaniel’s union is currently in federal mediation over new union contract negotiations for flight attendants at Southwest, which have been ongoing for over four years.
“Flight attendants really expect to see a contract that’s going to not only respect what they’ve been through, but also compensate them for all the time when we’ve seen inflation increased at record rates,” added McDaniel.
He also cited ongoing pushes for legislation to improve working conditions, which range from providing breastfeeding accommodations for flight crews, federal regulations to protect passengers and flight crew members from toxic fumes on airplanes, and reining in the trend of airlines outsourcing aviation maintenance abroad to cut costs.
Workers for airlines and airline contractors, where low-paid workers have been increasingly outsourced in recent decades from being directly employed by airlines, have complained of being overworked and underpaid as staff shortages are still prevalent in many parts of the industry.
Carlos Hernandez, a cargo agent for Swissport, which contracts for United at Dulles airport in Washington, has said understaffing and the pressure to load cargo on to planes on time have resulted in safety issues. He recently hurt his leg on the job when his supervisor, who was operating a forklift, knocked cargo container panels against him.
“They’re rushing us, and you feel terrible, because they’ll yell at you a lot of times. Sometimes they don’t even let you go to the bathroom,” said Hernandez. “I’m still in terrible pain. I can’t walk properly any more. When I step on my foot, I still feel pain in my leg, and I drag it so I don’t walk normally any more.
“I’ve only missed one day of work from the injury. I don’t miss any more days because I’m scared. If I miss a day, they’ll give you a point. They’ll give you points and these points accumulate and if you get too many points that they can fire you and I’ve already been giving a warning that if I get any more points I’m going to get suspended.”
