MAA flight attendant press release

[PITbull]

I just want to know why the "mainline" f/a's had to be current on the a/c? Why did we have to be current on theirs? Why do we have the same exact manual? We are different right? Than why were we not told this from day 1? I do remember on the first day that we were told we were seperate and we were sapposed to wear the express wings(we got in trouble if we had our mainline wings on) we had to say express in our announcements. Most of us did not..I for one never did and never had express wings on either. We were told this because we were "seperate" on a seperate certificate...then we all found out within weeks of being there that there was no seperate certificate..it was all mainline.

XO,

I don't know if you want to believe this but you were NEVER to say you were "express". Is this in your announcement? With regard to having 1 manual, we were told that because we are under one flying certificate (from MAA inception) that the FAA regulations is that it could be only 1 ER manual. As mainline, we never opened any doors in the mock ups that were E170. That section was in our manuals, but we were not responsible for the doors.

 

[nyprincess]

XO,

I don't know if you want to believe this but you were NEVER to say you were "express". Is this in your announcement? With regard to having 1 manual, we were told that because we are under one flying certificate (from MAA inception) that the FAA regulations is that it could be only 1 ER manual. As mainline, we never opened any doors in the mock ups that were E170. That section was in our manuals, but we were not responsible for the doors.

I beg to differ! We were told to say "express". And this IS in our announcements. I also never stated we were express nor did I wear my express wings as I was told to.

 

[PITbull]

I beg to differ! We were told to say "express". And this IS in our announcements. I also never stated we were express nor did I wear my express wings as I was told to.

Who told you? Did anyone discuss this with the MAA AFA Pres? The discussions at the table with managment on many occasions is that MAA IS NOT EXPRESS.

I would have nipped that in the butt from the get go if it were me. And I can tell you as sure as I'm sitting here now, that the PIT Local pres at the time of MAA inception (Teddy) would never, ever put up with that shittt. It was not happening while in her tenure as President of MAA (when it was only based in PIT) for those first 7 months. Regardless of what was written on the side of the a/c, it was said very frequentely to management DO NOT CALL THESE F/AS EXPRESS...THEY ARE NOT EXPRESS, BUT A DIVISION OF MAINLINE.

 

[nyprincess]

Who told you? Did anyone discuss this with the MAA AFA Pres? The discussions at the table with managment on many occasions is that MAA IS NOT EXPRESS.

I would have nipped that in the butt from the get go if it were me. And I can tell you as sure as I'm sitting here now, that the PIT Local pres at the time of MAA inception (Teddy) would never, ever put up with that shittt. It was not happening while in her tenure as President of MAA (when it was only based in PIT) for those first 7 months. Regardless of what was written on the side of the a/c, it was said very frequentely to management DO NOT TREAT THESE F/AS LIKE EXPRESS...THEY ARE NOT EXPRESS, BUT A DIVISION OF MAINLINE.

Would you like a copy of my announcement booklet from maa? Cause it's been there ever since I started 2 years ago!

 

[PITbull]

Yes. Just copy and paste it in a PM.

 

[nyprincess]

Yes. Just copy and paste it in a PM.

I can't copy and paste because I don't have it in electronic form. I have the booklet in front of my right now and I can tell you as sure as I'M sitting here it states...

Good(morning/afternoon/evening)ladies and gentlemen. On behlaf of USAirways Express, it is my pleasure to welcome you aboard flight......

 

[PITbull]

WOW! Someone is really bitter and upset... are you mad because the mda f/as had blocks and you didnt? why are you so hateful to your co-workers? number one you obviosly know nothing about midatlantic at all, if you did you would know

1 they never usaed the ae contract, it used elements of ae's, elements of mainline the rest was made up

2 there WAS no contract until a month ago

3 there has never been a new hire for us airways since 2001? how would there be a "off the street" working "at" midatlantic? you obviously dont even get what a division is

4 yes the mda people have been through more. i dont care what kind of pay cut you took. try 100%, then come back for 40% less, now another 40% pay cut. how dare you

5 mark my words we didnt agree to any contract, mark your facts. it was voted on by the actives and just said mda will be under AE contract. violation there because scheduling, uniforms etc were not by AE contract. there was also no mention of it being a division of mainline

6 most importantly page 1 of the US Airways contract says THIS CONTRACT APPLIES TO ALL US AIRWAYS INC F/As there is no sidenote that says except if we paint express on the plane and call it midatlantic or whatever.

furthermore your attitude of "you only have six years seniority" is what is wrong with us airways. preople like you who cant support thier co-workers should just leave. the way you are speaking to your own f/as is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. you dont know anything about it and this lawsuit doesnt affect you in any way so theres no reason for you to get your panties in a wad about it. so this "kid" says f@ck you and i hope i never fly with you.

im sick of these senior a**holes who call us "KIDATLANTIC" and act like we are express.... you know what! if we "kids" hadn't kicked up a fuss, U would not be getting 25 new E190s... republic or someone else would. we wont even be flying them, you will. and you'll probably complain because you have to demo. its because of our our pilots and f/as educating people on what was done to us that the pilots )the america west ones mostly) said no these stay at mainline.

To answer 1 and 3, AE provisions were for workrules, benefits and wages, and if MAA kept growing, there certainly would be a "flow through" of express f/as offered those jobs and then"off the street". During the first 6 months of MAA actually flying, the company had gone down the entire invol list once.

Number 5. There are no provisions in the AFA consititution that gives involuntary furloughees rights to vote on a contract. When these provisions were being negotiated, MAA was just a name and NO planes were purchased or delivered for one full year after ratification. The issue was during BK and the negotiations was all during BK. The job losses endured by the f/as within the first 5 year seniority range was during Nov-Dec 2, 2001, post 9/11. Since that time, there has been NO involuntary furloughees because of deep concessions from the f/a group (3) and negotiating voluntary furloughs (9 of them) and a VFLR 1100. Without the VF programs, the Invol list would have been approx 6,500.

The negotiated provisions of AE were to be ONLY workrules, benefits and wages. Uniform do not fall in that catagory nor scheduling or what payroll vendor is used. What AFA spent many months on was getting the medical "retoractive" to the day of taking the job, and flow through. They also tried very hard for improvements of workrules and was able to tweek some, but nothing worth while. They negotiated holding pay to go into effect I believe in 2007, and that is a first for even American Eagle who never had that.

 

[EMBFA]

we were told from the beginning to say us airways express and we were even given wings that said "EXPRESS" on them. most of us had our old wings so wore them but some of the real junior ones had thiers taken away. those of us who had more than one set of wings gave ours to the, because we were not express so shouldnt have to wear that. no offense to express but we may make express pay but we are MAINLINE flight attendants. we NEVER EVER say Express on the airplane in any announcements. i have heard one or two say it and they were told not to by the captain. some of the allegheny f/os say it to by habit but they are corrected by the rest of the crew.

but everything from the company including the current announcement booklet says us airways express but they know we wont follow it. i had deb hoke on a flight and she didnt say anything. i think we do such a good job they dont bother to make us say express. the only place it says express is on the side of the airplane which was sad on such a pretty plane.

if you can get on thehub heres the announcement booklet where it says US Airways Express. it doesnt say midatlantic because they are not allowed to since there is no airline called midatlantic

http://thehub.usairways.com/midatlantic/MA...nts_2005_06.pdf

 

[PITbull]

we were told from the beginning to say us airways express and we were even given wings that said "EXPRESS" on them. most of us had our old wings so wore them but some of the real junior ones had thiers taken away. those of us who had more than one set of wings gave ours to the, because we were not express so shouldnt have to wear that. no offense to express but we may make express pay but we are MAINLINE flight attendants. we NEVER EVER say Express on the airplane in any announcements. i have heard one or two say it and they were told not to by the captain. some of the allegheny f/os say it to by habit but they are corrected by the rest of the crew.

but everything from the company including the current announcement booklet says us airways express but they know we wont follow it. i had deb hoke on a flight and she didnt say anything. i think we do such a good job they dont bother to make us say express. the only place it says express is on the side of the airplane which was sad on such a pretty plane.

EMBFA,

If Deb Hoke would have brought anyone in for not saying "Express", AFA would have gone down her throat and pulled her tongue out, she knew better!

 

[N109UW]

I just want to know why the "mainline" f/a's had to be current on the a/c? Why did we have to be current on theirs? Why do we have the same exact manual? We are different right? Than why were we not told this from day 1? I do remember on the first day that we were told we were seperate and we were sapposed to wear the express wings(we got in trouble if we had our mainline wings on) we had to say express in our announcements. Most of us did not..I for one never did and never had express wings on either. We were told this because we were "seperate" on a seperate certificate...then we all found out within weeks of being there that there was no seperate certificate..it was all mainline.

Mainline F/A's were never current on the 170. We only had to have it in our manual for legal reasons, in that MAA was operating under mainline cert. We never had to do the doors or answer questions on that a/c.

 

[nyprincess]

EMBFA,

If Deb Hoke would have brought anyone in for not saying "Express", AFA would have gone down her throat and pulled her tongue out, she knew better!

we were told to say "express" in our announcements..so deb hoke would have every right to bring us in for not saying it. If it's in there were suppost to say it...isn't that right? Or am I missing something? And for you to say the afa would have done something about it is a crock of sh**, especially if Teddy was in office for us. Even in training we were told to say express, and the trainers were mainline.

 

[PITbull]

we were told to say "express" in our announcements..so deb hoke would have every right to bring us in for not saying it. If it's in there were suppost to say it...isn't that right? Or am I missing something? And for you to say the afa would have done something about it is a crock of sh**, especially if Teddy was in office for us. Even in training we were told to say express, and the trainers were mainline.

There is no one, not one single MAA f/a that reported to the AFA that they were repremanded for not saying "Express" in the announcement.

JErry Glass knew and so did his neg. committee including Deb HOke in meetings that AFA did NOT recognize MAA as express. MAA was negotiated as a "division" of mainline and that is why they got to ride our jumpseasts AND EXPRESS WAS NOT PERMITTED.

You are NOT express. You are not a wholly owned subsidiary as PSA. Different workrules, benefits and wages as negotiated, but NOT express as an entity.

That complaint should have gone to your MEC MAA Pres. Those f/as who chose to stay active as members of union knew this very well.

 

[xoxo]

There are still to this day f/a's at MAA with express wings on..they have tried to get mainline wings from the mainline inflight office and they say no. I even tried in PIT over a year ago and they said "no sorry you are not mainline you need to get them from MidAtlantic." Eventually I found my mainline wings, but, the junior ones that had them taken away after they were furloughed(fired) in 2001..they only have express wings. Should they try again to get some mainline wings? I bet they say "NO".

I remember first day of training we were told (Flasco)"Don't let me catch you wearing your mainline wings. This is exress and you will wear your express wings."

 

[PITbull]

There are still to this day f/a's at MAA with express wings on..they have tried to get mainline wings from the mainline inflight office and they say no. I even tried in PIT over a year ago and they said "no sorry you are not mainline you need to get them from MidAtlantic." Eventually I found my mainline wings, but, the junior ones that had them taken away after they were furloughed(fired) in 2001..they only have express wings. Should they try again to get some mainline wings? I bet they say "NO".

I remember first day of training we were told (Flasco)"Don't let me catch you wearing your mainline wings. This is exress and you will wear your express wings."

Well, I can tell you he wasn't quite right on anything from the onset. AFA had to set him straight on numerous occasions and even get Bruce Ashby involved in the circus. And since that time he had been let go to other pastures.

 

[nyprincess]

There is no one, not one single MAA f/a that reported to the AFA that they were repremanded for not saying "Express" in the announcement.

JErry Glass knew and so did his neg. committee including Deb HOke in meetings that AFA did NOT recognize MAA as express. MAA was negotiated as a "division" of mainline and that is why they got to ride our jumpseasts AND EXPRESS WAS NOT PERMITTED.

You are NOT express. You are not a wholly owned subsidiary as PSA. Different workrules, benefits and wages as negotiated, but NOT express as an entity.

That complaint should have gone to your MEC MAA Pres. Those f/as who chose to stay active as members of union knew this very well.

I never stated any maa f/a got repremanded for not saying express. What I did say was they have every right to because it states in in our announcements to say express.
Why do you think we have this lawsuit out..it's because we wanted to be considered mainline and no one fought for us to get that. Or at least not enough.