The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (commonly known as AFA) is a union representing

flight attendant A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are prima ...

s in the United States. As of January 2018, AFA represents 50,000 flight attendants at 20

airlines An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in whic ...

. Since 2004, AFA has been part of the

Communications Workers of America The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico). The union has 27 ...

(CWA), an affiliate of

AFL–CIO The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...

. AFA is also an affiliate of the

International Transport Workers' Federation The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is a democratic global union federation of transport workers' trade unions, founded in 1896. In 2017 the ITF had 677 member organizations in 149 countries, representing a combined membership ...

History

AFA was founded in 1945 by flight attendants at

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

. The organization was originally known as Airline Stewardess Association (ALSA). ALSA negotiated its first contract with United in 1946. In 1949, ALSA merged with the Air Line Stewards and Stewardesses Association (ALSSA), an affiliate of the

Air Line Pilots Association The Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) is the largest pilot union in the world, representing more than 59,000 pilots from 35 U.S. and Canadian airlines. ALPA was founded on 27 July 1931 and is a member of the AFL-CIO and the Canadi ...

(ALPA). By 1951, ALSSA had 3,300 members. ALPA created two separate divisions in 1960, one for pilots, and one for stewards and stewardesses. Nearly half of the USA's 8,700 flight attendants were members of ALPA's S&S division at that time. In 1973, ALSSA flight attendants chose self-determination and formed the independent Association of Flight Attendants, leaving ALPA. In 1982, AFA had 22,000 members at 18 American airlines. In 1984, the

granted AFA a

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the re ...

Organizing

In July 2006, Northwest Airlines flight attendants voted to replace their independent union with AFA. AFA's membership rose to 55,000 flight attendants. On November 4, 2010, AFA was decertified by the

National Mediation Board The National Mediation Board (NMB) is an independent agency of the United States government that coordinates labor-management relations within the U.S. railroads and airlines industries. History The board was established by the 1934 amendments to ...

as the bargaining representative for the pre-merger Northwest Airlines flight attendants of Delta Air Lines, after narrowly losing a representational election of the combined group the day before. AFA filed objections to the election with the

alleging interference. On June 29, 2011 AFA won one of the largest private sector union elections in decades, winning representation rights for the combined workforce of approximately 24,000 flight attendants at United Airlines,

Continental Airlines Continental Airlines, simply known as Continental, was a major United States airline founded in 1934 and eventually headquartered in Houston, Texas. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers. Continental started ...

and

Continental Micronesia Continental Micronesia, Inc. (CMI) was a company which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Continental Airlines. It operated daily flights to Honolulu, Hawaii, as well as international services to Asia, Micronesia and Australia from its base of o ...

. That election was triggered by a National Mediation Board ruling that those airlines had formed a single transportation system as a result of a corporate merger.

CHAOS

AFA Flight Attendants picketing Northwest Airlines (San Francisco International Airport, August 15 2006)

CHAOS is AFA's trademarked strategy of intermittent strikes designed to maximize the impact of an industrial action while minimizing the risk for striking flight attendants. In May 1993, AFA members at Seattle-based

Alaska Airlines Alaska Airlines is a major American airline headquartered in SeaTac, Washington, within the Seattle metropolitan area. It is the sixth largest airline in North America when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and the num ...

were facing a 30-day cooling-off period after more than three years of negotiations. In June, 1993, the cooling-off period mandated by the

Railway Labor Act The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law on US labor law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, enacted in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration, and media ...

had expired. The first CHAOS strike took place in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

when three flight attendants walked off an Alaska Airlines flight just before passenger boarding. A month later, another crew of flight attendants struck the last flight out of

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

. A few weeks later, AFA struck five flights simultaneously in the San Francisco area.

America West America West Airlines was a major American airline, founded in 1981, with service commencing in 1983, and having reached US$1 billion in annual revenue in 1989, headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. At the time of its acquisition of US Airways, Americ ...

, AirTran and

US Airways US Airways (formerly USAir) was a major United States airline that operated from 1937 until its merger with American Airlines in 2015. It was originally founded in Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called All American Aviation, which soon ...

all settled with AFA on the eve of, or a few minutes after, the end of a 30-day cooling-off period in the 1990s. AFA flight attendants at Midwest Express (now

Midwest Airlines Midwest Airlines (formerly Midwest Express) was a U.S.-based airline headquartered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, that operated from Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport between 1984 and 2010. For a short time, it also operated as a brand of ...

), completed a cooling-off period without reaching agreement on a first contract in 2002. After three weeks of a CHAOS campaign, and on the eve of CHAOS strikes, management agreed to terms that were ratified by the flight attendants. United Airlines flight attendants used the threat of CHAOS to leverage their negotiations during the airline's bankruptcy, succeeding in doubling the value of the replacement retirement plan management had proposed. Flight attendants at

Northwest Airlines Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) was a major American airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines, Inc. by a merger. The merger, approved on October 29, 2008, made Delta the largest airline in the world until the American Airlines ...

, locked in a round of bankruptcy negotiations, deployed a CHAOS campaign days after joining AFA in July, 2006. Union negotiators concluded a new tentative agreement with millions of dollars in improvements, but which was voted down by a narrow margin. AFA continued preparations for CHAOS strikes at Northwest pending the outcome of negotiations and litigation surrounding the case. The bankruptcy court ruled in favor of the union, denying the strike injunction sought by management. On appeal, the federal district court and the court of appeals ruled that workers under the Railway Labor Act cannot strike in response to rejection of a collective bargaining agreement in bankruptcy. Northwest and AFA returned to negotiations and reached a new tentative agreement, which was narrowly ratified by the flight attendants on May 29, 2007. The flight attendants became the last major work group at Northwest to agree to new contract terms in bankruptcy. The new contract provided Northwest with $195 million in annual cuts through 2011, and secured a $182 million equity claim for the flight attendants before it was lost upon the company's exit from bankruptcy.

Member flight attendant groups

AFA represents the flight attendant

bargaining unit A bargaining unit, in labor relations, is a group of employees with a clear and identifiable community of interests who is (under US law) represented by a single labor union in collective bargaining Collective bargaining is a process of negoti ...

at the following airlines: *

Cathay Pacific Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (CPA), more widely known as Cathay Pacific (), is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and subsidiaries have ...

(US-based cabin crew)

Citations

Works cited

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