Delta apparently tried to “trap” flight attendants on a delayed flight to stop them from walking off after they had all worked past their allowable hours. According to Huffpost, it all started when a May 12th flight From Atlanta (ATL) to Toronto (YYZ) was delayed due to a maintenance issue. As the airline attempted to work through the issue for 3.5 hours, an employee at Delta operations sent a message to the gate agent to keep the flight door closed to prevent the flight attendants from walking off.
“Do not open door,” the message read. “flt attendants out of time and none available.” The employee advised the gate agent to “let [maintenance] do their work without opening door thanks.”
The message at 10:19pm was followed by another 40 minutes later from the operations center but with an even more urgent tone:
“Ok… if door is not closed by [11 p.m.] Flt attendants walking. We will most likely have to delay flight until morning if this happens.” Someone in the flight tower responded, “Copy.”
The ironic part is that the non-union flight attendants were willing to stay on board to operate the flight with overtime compensation. The Huffpost says that a flight leader acknowledged that they knew the operations team was trying to ‘trap’ them on the plane, even though the attendants were willing to work voluntarily.
‘Since we are deciding to stay although y’all are trying to trap us on the plane, and now our layover has been shortened and we will be past our duty day, hungry and tired. It would be nice to have a deadhead at some point tomorrow,’ the flight leader said. We are ready to walk literally,” the attendant followed up in another message. “Doing the operation a huge favor
When contacted for comment, Delta provided the following statement:
“Operating an airline is a team effort and the guidance shared in this exchange does not reflect the respect and collaboration we expect of our employees when making operational decisions,” the company said. “Delta’s unique culture is built on supporting one another and that didn’t happen in this case. We have followed up directly with the team members involved to address this situation.”
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