United, Southwest Airlines Flight Attendants Picket at Airports

Flight attendants at United Airlines and Southwest Airlines picketed at major airports on Tuesday, both for different reasons.

For United flight attendants, it was dubbed a “Day of Action” to demand that the airline do a better job of addressing the operational issues that have led to tens of thousands of delays and cancellations this year.

United workers protested at 14 airports in the U.S., Guam and London, according to Fox Business News.

“Flight attendants are on the frontlines when an operational meltdown occurs, and they are expected to address passenger concerns,” flight attendants union AFA-CWA said in a statement provided to Fox. “But recently flight attendants have been left empty-handed or stranded themselves without support from management who are running the airline.”

The union is asking the airline to get its workforce up to proper staffing so as not to further disrupt airline personnel and the flying public.

United Airlines responded to FOX Business, telling the media outlet that it has “worked hard to reduce wait times for flight attendants to talk to a crew scheduler, including more hiring and adding digital options for some items.”

For Southwest, the issue is money.

Flight attendants have been locked in a contract dispute with Southwest for years and have been without a new agreement since 2018.

“Southwest Airlines flight attendants really like to love our company, and today’s efforts don’t mean that we don’t love our company,” Lyn Montgomery, President of TWU Local 556 and a flight attendant who has been with Southwest since 1995, said in a statement. “But it is a drastic move for us to be out here picketing and saying, ‘Do better.’ It is drastic for us to come out and picket. We don’t do it often and we don’t do it lightly.”

The protests were similar to what pilots did last month at various airports, taking their concerns and issues directly to the public.