Airfare prices continue to rise!
Airfare prices rose more than 18% in the United States in April, the sharpest single month increase since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking costs, according to the agency.
In total, airline fares experienced an 18.6% increase in April, building on a months-long trend that has seen airfare prices rise 33.3% over the last year, the largest 12-month increase since 1980, according to the bureau’s Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The April increase was the largest one-month increase since the bureau started tracking in 1963.
Beyond airfare, gasoline prices actually dropped 6.1% over the month after seeing an 18.3% increase in March. But gas for motor fuel has seen an overall increase over the past 12 months, rising by 44%.
Source: Travel + Leisure
Jetblue flight attendants are stretched thin!
Flight attendants at JetBlue are ‘physically drained’, ‘mentally exhausted’ and at ‘breaking point’ after a succession of recent operational meltdowns that have been made worse by staff shortages and ‘punitive’ attendance policies.
That was the message that JetBlue’s president Joanna Geraghty received on Friday in an open letter from the Transport Workers Union (TWU) which represents flight attendants at the carrier.
The union recently signed its first contract with JetBlue which was welcomed by management but the relationship between the two sides has become increasingly strained in recent weeks because flight attendants feel like they are being blamed for the airline’s recent operational disasters.
Source: Paddleyourownkanoo.com
American Airlines can’t find hotels for its flight attendants!
American Airlines is struggling to find large enough hotels in London that are both able and willing to accommodate its pilots and flight attendants in the British capital.
According to the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) which represents crew members at AA, the airline currently has flight attendants spread out across six different hotels and a seventh could be added as more rooms are needed over the busy summer period.
Unfortunately, not all of the hotels are allegedly up to the standards required by APFA and both the union and the airline have seen an uptick in complaints from flight attendants about the lodging currently being offered in London.
Source: Paddleyourownkanoo.com
British Airways faces discontent from cabin crews!
British Airways is facing the potential for a “summer of discontent” and chief executive Sean Doyle must “go beyond well-meaning words” if he is to fix the mess, warns a cabin crew union that represents the vast majority of flight attendants at the cancellation-prone airline.
The carrier has nixed thousands of flights from its schedule over the summer to cope with post-pandemic staff shortages and Doyle has embarked on a major shakeup of key management figures in an attempt to fix problems at the beleaguered airline.
Source: Paddleyourkanoo.com