Not What I Expected - Flight Attendant Allegiant Air Employee Review

It being my first job as a FA, I did some research and discovered that FAs only get paid when the aircraft doors are closed. They will collect a per-diem of $1 an hour when they begin their duty day. I thought this would be fine, but when you get out on the line and discover that the company requires you to do certain things during the boarding process (like announcements, interact with passengers, assist with finding seats, assist with luggage, cleaning up the plane after a flight, etc.), you start to wonder why you’re not being paid for all this time. Customers will often ask for help lifting and storing their luggage, however, if you are injured during the boarding process assisting a passenger with their luggage, I’m told the On The Job Injury claim would be denied. How would you properly deny an elderly or handicapped person assistance with their luggage? The company knows many FAs will help passengers out of duty or kindness, regardless, putting themselves at risk for injury. If there are any delays and the passengers are on board, the company will require FAs at a certain time to provide a tarmac delay pour service. Once again, the FAs will only be making their per-diem pay of $1 an hour – although they are working. After, they will also need to complete a tarmac delay form, which once again, they are not being paid for anything additional for the time it takes to complete. If the delay is at the gate, the FAs will sit and wait however many hours the company deems necessary. Since FAs don’t time out, the company can make a FA wait however long they want and they would still be legal to work any trip that day. For example: An FA has to report to the gate at 6 am for a 7 am departure. There is a maintenance delay and the flight doesn’t actually leave until 4 pm that day. The same crew can AND most likely WILL be made to work that flight. If they get back early enough to be legal for their trip the next day (if they have any) the company most likely will also make them work their trip the next day. Many times there will be delays that the company is already aware of and Crew Services will not call the FAs to inform them of the delay. To discuss the level of helpfulness (or unhelpfulness) that Crew Services provides would require a whole other long explanation. Just be aware that they are disorganized and have mainly the company’s interest to look after. To get them to be fair requires a battle half of the time. It just was not something I was prepared for… I was ready to work hard for a company that looks after my interests as well from time to time. We are not robots, we are human beings and sometimes we require more than 9 hours of rest when we have worked a 12-16 hour day. That is not the case at all, and they just don’t get it most of the time. These type of things apparently happen with all airlines, however, it just seems that maintenance issues are SO common with Allegiant. There seems to always be some type of issue or some delay. Don’t make plans when you have trips scheduled, most likely you will have to reschedule your plans. Be prepared to have days where you’re only being paid for 5-6 hours of work but are actually putting in 10 or more hours. FAs are guaranteed 75 hours a month, and usually when they are first hired they will sit reserve for 14 hours a day and get paid for 3.5 hours of that day. Expect to have about 11 days off in a month and the rest of the days on reserve. The amount of time a FA will remain on reserve with Allegiant is unknown since it depends on the base and how many more people are hired after you. While on reserve the company can call you and assign you a trip with a 90 minute call out at any time. For example, if you have been on reserve from 4am and it’s scheduled to end at 6 pm, they can call you at 5:59 pm and you must answer. I will say that has not happened to me yet, but just so anyone considering the job knows it CAN happen. To make a little extra money you can pick up trips on your days off, but because the duty periods on reserve are so long, it’s often difficult to do IF there are even trips available for pick up. FAs are not paid for the time it takes to complete required computer based trainings FAs are not paid for the time it takes to complete mandatory updates to their Flight Attendant Manuals FAs are not paid for the time it takes to have a random drug test There are many other issues (like with any other job), but the ones I felt most strongly about are the one’s I’ve written about above. Most of us work because we depend on the income we receive for our livelihood. It was just so shocking and discouraging to enter an industry/company that works in this manner. The FAs want to unionize to have things be more fair, but this has been going on since 2011! They are being strung along with the idea that things may be fairer soon, but who knows when an actual contract may come. Also, the Pilots have a fantastic contract that should be taken as a model for FAs, but the company clearly has time and time again shown that FAs will never be as important as the pilots. We are replaceable and if we don’t like the way things are we can just (and should) move onto something else. Having said all this I look forward to changing from this industry soon. I hope that all this can help someone else determine if being a Flight Attendant is for them or not.