American Flight Attendants Angry About Service Increases: Justified?

Yesterday, American Airlines announced plans to improve service in economy on some flights. Specifically, the airline will be restoring a second drink service in economy on domestic flights of over 1,500 miles, and will be restoring a pre-dinner drink service in economy on long haul international flights departing before 9:01PM.

Yay… right? Well, not so fast. This of course sounds like a positive development, though the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), which represents American’s roughly 28,000 flight attendants, isn’t happy about these updates, as flagged by @xJonNYC. Is there merit to their objection?

Union blasts management over service changes

American’s flight attendant union isn’t happy with the airline increasing service levels without consulting the union, and claims that management has been lying to flight attendants. Let me explain what’s going on.

Essentially, at the start of the pandemic, American reduced staffing levels on some aircraft, in light of reduced demand and reduced service levels. When demand recovered, the airline decided not to increase staffing levels, but suggested it wouldn’t return to pre-pandemic service procedures. However, the airline has now reversed course on that.

At the time, union representatives had questioned management on whether the service cuts were permanent, as part of the negotiation on reduced staffing. As the head of inflight service for the airline explained, “we have no intention of changing our current service footprint,” “so said differently, temporary is permanent.”

The memo continues with the following:

This thinly veiled lie is a slap in the face to not just to every Flight Attendant but our passengers as well. With no changes to the catering currently supplied on the aircraft and no additional Flight Attendants to accomplish this service, American Airlines has set us all up for frustration and failure. Management’s reversal on service makes it abundantly clear: their arbitration argument was never about what was operationally sustainable — it was about cutting corners at the expenses of both the passengers and the Flight Attendants.

American Airlines management continues to demand more work from fewer Flight Attendants, all under the misleading tagline of “enhancing the customer experience.” Sadly, American’s onboard product has fallen behind our competitors in every cabin, and passengers have taken notice. So has Wall Street. The dismal first quarter 2025 financial results made it clear: the lack of meaningful investment in the inflight experience is hurting the brand — and American’s bottom line.

My take on the union’s complaint to management

Let’s try to analyze this objectively, rather than just defaulting to the typical “flight attendants are lazy” and “unions suck” argument. Because I think the union has some valid concerns, but is also being a bit dramatic with other concerns, unless I’m missing something.

First of all, if American is introducing more drink services without actually catering more drinks, then that seems like it will be an issue, and I hope the airline addresses that. I can only imagine how many drinks will no longer be available with the second service. So I appreciate the union looking out for customers with that.

That being said, I’m struggling with some of the staffing concerns. Around the start of the pandemic, American reduced staffing on several aircraft — I believe 777-300ERs went from 13 to 11 flight attendants, 777-200ERs went from 10 to nine flight attendants, and A321Ts went from six to five flight attendants. Standard domestic aircraft (737s, A319s, A320s, A321s, etc.) were already all staffed at minimums, so there was no change there.

What I’m not following is which part of the service the union thinks will be much more difficult to accomplish. If we’re talking about the second beverage service on domestic flights of over 1,500 miles:

• A vast majority of those flights are operated by aircraft that haven’t seen staffing cuts
• If flight attendants can provide one drink service on a flight that might be five hours, surely they can also do a second drink service toward the end of the flight, since they’d still have a significant break in between
• Even with the way staffing was reduced several years ago, the staffing level for economy is still largely better than or in line with what it is on narrow body planes

If we’re talking about a pre-dinner drink service on long haul international flights, then I can see how this could become an issue. I’m not talking about the ability of flight attendants to perform the service, necessarily, but I can see how if you’re staffed so low, the service could take a really long time, and that could lead to passenger dissatisfaction. Even if flight attendants do their best, there might be complaints about the pace of service.

So can any flight attendants maybe clarify which part of these service changes are problematic? Are we talking about the second drink service on 1,500+ mile flights, or the pre-dinner drink service on long haul flights? And is there a particular aircraft where this is most problematic?

By the way, I’m not one to usually give management the benefit of the doubt, but there is one point I want to give them credit for. The union is angry that American’s head of inflight service at the time claimed there were no plans to restore service in economy. I absolutely think that was the plan at the time, because American was on a race to the bottom. American is now obviously trying to improve, and the guy who made the comment isn’t even at the airline anymore. So I don’t think there was any deceit there.

Bottom line

American is improving service in economy on many flights, by introducing additional drink services. The flight attendant union isn’t happy about these changes, given that staffing levels were cut at the start of the pandemic, at the same time that some inflight service was cut.

The flight attendants feel like they’ve been deceived by management. While I appreciate the union’s concern about American not increasing the provisioning of drinks, I’m struggling to understand which part of the service the union thinks that flight attendants can’t reasonably deliver on.

What do you make of the flight attendant union’s concerns?