Cabin crew sagt opp - Nektet å jobbe i fly de mente var usikkert

Why 13 United Airlines flight attendants are claiming wrongful termination over security threat

Jan 7, 2015, 2:41pm CST UPDATED: Jan 7, 2015, 3:54pm

 

 

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Graffiti found on the tail cone of United Flight 869 were of concern to flight attendants working the flight last July 14.

Lewis Lazare

Reporter-Chicago Business Journal

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For years the threat of terrorism — and the fear that threat often engenders — has loomed large in the airline industry both for passengers and airline staff.

That fact was made clear yet again Tuesday when 13 flight attendants for Chicago-based United Airlines filed a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration claiming they were unfairly fired from their jobs on Oct. 9 and 10 of last year.

In their complaint the United flight attendants said the firings of all 13 came after they refused on July 14, 2014, to work United flight No. 869 from San Francisco to Hong Kong because of their collective concerns about a possible security threat to the Boeing 747 aircraft they were supposed to fly.

As the complaint spells out, the flight attendants still refused to work the flight after being issued a direct order to do so by their supervisor — which prompted United to fire all 13, who together had more than 299 years of flight attendant experience.

The flight attendants concerns for the safety of the crew and some 300 passengers booked on Flight 869 on July 14 stemmed in large part from the words "Bye Bye" that were found scrawled on the tail cone of the plane along with drawings of two faces — one of which was said to be smiling, while the other had a more troubling expression.

It's unclear based on the information in the complaint when the graffiti was first discovered and who first found it.

As the complaint also noted in great detail, once the crew became aware of the grafitti, there was much subsequent back and forth among United Flight 869 crew and ground staff about what was discovered on the plane's tail, how it possibly came to be there and when it might first have been put there.