Coveted long haul routes are like gold for many flight attendants craving a stopover in an exotic far off destination.
In fact, they are so in demand that some are willing to pay good money to secure duty on one.
United Airlines has uncovered another black market scheme within its ranks where some flight attendants have been working as enterprising ‘travel agents.’
Some flight attendants scheduled to work popular long haul routes to cities like Sydney, Singapore or Tokyo are raking in hard cash by selling them to colleagues.
There seems to be no shortage of less senior FAs keen to work these routes even if they have to pay for it.
As with most airlines, United’s flight attendants are permitted to swap flight duty but can be fired for profiting from them financially.
Spurred by complaints from some flight crew, the airline found evidence of an ‘elicit brokering’ marketplace on social media channels with some selling access to the highly desirable routes to less senior flight crew.
United fired off an internal memo threatening to fire anyone engaging in it.
The Association of Flight Attendants has backed the airline and will not offer to protect employees found to be involved in the scheme.
Just a few weeks ago United fired 35 employees who it says abused travel perks by selling their staff and family travel passes to the paying public, sometimes for several thousand dollars.
