‘Snitches on a Plane’: Some American Airlines Flight Attendants Complain About New Inflight LOSA Monitoring
American Airlines is sending auditors on flights to monitor flight attendant safety performance. It’s a partnership with the flight attendants union – which doesn’t appear to have asked for anything in return, despite being in protracted negotiations and reporting out to members little progress.
Some flight attendants are calling LOSA-C, the Line Operations Safety Audit-Cabin program the “snitch” program. It was announced this was coming 15 months ago and was supposed to start this past fall, but the airline is only just now recruiting flight attendant observers for it:
Flight attendants observe other cabin crew work their flights and file reports without identifying the crewmember or flight. They only collect safety-related observations and flight attendants can’t get in trouble for what’s been documented. Observers have to get the consent of all crew to monitor the flight. It’s not a ‘check ride’ monitoring how crew perform their service duties.
According to the union, this is how the program works:
1. An APFA line-qualified Flight Attendant, who has been trained as a Cabin LOSA Observer, selects a flight to observe.
2. The Cabin LOSA observer will introduce themselves, explain the Cabin LOSA Program, and ask all Flight Attendants if they would like to participate in the program.
3. If all Flight Attendants say yes, the Cabin LOSA observer will occupy a passenger seat (Cabin LOSA observers will never take a jumpseat from a commuting Flight Attendant), and the observers must receive a yes to observe the flight from every member of the crew. If one crew member objects, no observation will take place.
4. The Cabin LOSA observer will not interfere with crew duties. The observation is confidential, and the observer does not record the flight number, date of the observation, or any employee information.
5. Once the observation is over, there is no debrief – the observer will thank you for allowing them to observe and may offer you the opportunity to provide crew comments.
Some crew find working in new domestic ‘Oasis’ galleys, that have limited workspace (because it’s been condensed to make room for more seats) challenging enough as it is and are uncomfortable with the program set up to watch them work. American highlights that it hopes to see lower insurance costs out of the program, improved employee morale (?), and lower costs from workplace injuries. Here is one such communication:
Crew don’t seem to entirely believe the company that participation is voluntary, and that refusals are kept anonymous. Several call it the ‘snitch program’ in social media and private groups.
American Airlines is not monitoring cabin crew service. There’s no report on whether they serve predeparture beverages, address customers by name, or hang jackets in first class. After all, they believe flight attendants are here primarily for your safety.
