June 26, 2003
BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Business Reporter
After complaints from its flight attendants union, UAL Corp.''s United Airlines has altered a cost-saving plan to shut management offices in Las Vegas and Philadelphia, which would have forced more than 500 flight attendants to move.
Earlier this month, United said it would close management offices in the cities.
This would have uprooted flight attendants, creating hardships, said Association of Flight Attendants spokeswoman Sara Dela Cruz.
Las Vegas and Philadelphia are two of the cheapest places to live.
She said one flight attendant, who lived in a four-bedroom home with a pool in Las Vegas, searched for comparable housing in Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago and found for what she paid in Las Vegas, she would only have been able to get a 450-square-foot condo in those cities.
Commuting wasn''t an option because of the heavy traffic levels in and out of Las Vegas and Philadelphia, she said. Flight attendants, who fly standby, would have had difficulty finding available seats to make it to work on time, she said.
In the compromise, management operations will be consolidated at sites in Los Angeles and Newark, said United spokesman Jason Schechter, but the flight attendants won''t have to move.
We worked to see if there were some sort of an agreement that would look at these locations in a non-traditional ways that would save costs, Dela Cruz said. We wanted to find a way to be able to leave people where they were. We have given enough concessions.
Flight attendants welcomed the compromise, she said.
Flight attendants agreed in April to $314 million in annual wage concessions over six years to help the company successfully emerge from bankruptcy.
United''s Schechter said the compromise allows the company to achieve its goal of cost containment in a way that also benefits the flight attendants.
He declined to say what the cost
savings will be for United.
BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Business Reporter
After complaints from its flight attendants union, UAL Corp.''s United Airlines has altered a cost-saving plan to shut management offices in Las Vegas and Philadelphia, which would have forced more than 500 flight attendants to move.
Earlier this month, United said it would close management offices in the cities.
This would have uprooted flight attendants, creating hardships, said Association of Flight Attendants spokeswoman Sara Dela Cruz.
Las Vegas and Philadelphia are two of the cheapest places to live.
She said one flight attendant, who lived in a four-bedroom home with a pool in Las Vegas, searched for comparable housing in Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago and found for what she paid in Las Vegas, she would only have been able to get a 450-square-foot condo in those cities.
Commuting wasn''t an option because of the heavy traffic levels in and out of Las Vegas and Philadelphia, she said. Flight attendants, who fly standby, would have had difficulty finding available seats to make it to work on time, she said.
In the compromise, management operations will be consolidated at sites in Los Angeles and Newark, said United spokesman Jason Schechter, but the flight attendants won''t have to move.
We worked to see if there were some sort of an agreement that would look at these locations in a non-traditional ways that would save costs, Dela Cruz said. We wanted to find a way to be able to leave people where they were. We have given enough concessions.
Flight attendants welcomed the compromise, she said.
Flight attendants agreed in April to $314 million in annual wage concessions over six years to help the company successfully emerge from bankruptcy.
United''s Schechter said the compromise allows the company to achieve its goal of cost containment in a way that also benefits the flight attendants.
He declined to say what the cost
savings will be for United.
