The Mystery of the Ailing Flight Attendants

[Kip Powick]

What's behind the mysterious outbreak of illness among American Airline crews?

 

 

From oozing blisters and wheezing to rashes, itchy eyes and sore throats, numerous American Airlines Group flight attendants say their new work uniforms are making them sick.

But after a battery of tests and a tense back-and-forth among their union, the airline and the uniform supplier, it’s still not clear what exactly is behind the rise in health complaints.

 

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), which represents flight attendants for American, has asked the carrier to recall the new garments, which went to 70,000 employees starting in September.

The airline says it has spent more than $1 million (U.S.) for three rounds of toxicological tests that, so far, haven’t turned up any obvious causes for the maladies.

 

American and the union are now conferring on protocols for further examinations — but the issue grew more contentious last week amid a flurry of communications among the airline, the flight attendants’ union and the uniform supplier.

 

The union says about 10 per cent, or 2,300, of the flight attendants it represents have reported adverse reactions — among them skin rashes, sore throats, wheezing, fatigue and vertigo — since they started wearing the new uniform.

“This continues to be a serious and growing problem, and is not going to go away without some further remedial action by the company,” the union said on Thursday in a message to members.

 

American says an employee call centre it opened in October has gotten 450 formal complaints of health problems, 350 of them from flight attendants.

 

The uniform controversy has become such a topic of concern at the airline that several executives have begun wearing the outfit, or parts of it, in an effort to allay fears.

Still, the flight attendants believe that chemicals in the uniform — say, a dye or an adhesive — are probably causing the severe reactions the union says are affecting roughly one in 10 flight attendants.

“I’m very confident that there’s something in that fabric that’s causing this,” said Bob Ross, the union’s national president. “Some [people] react right away. Lots of other people are feeling the effects just by being around the uniforms.”

 

Ross, a 33-year American veteran, said he himself wore the new uniform’s cotton shirt, “and by the end of the day my entire chest, neck and arms were red.”

It took two showers and disposal of the shirt and its packaging to resolve, he said.

 

A New York-based flight attendant, speaking via online chat on condition of anonymity, said her throat had begun burning on one flight and that she had grown hoarse and broken out in hives. She said she had been to 12 doctor appointments in 40 subsequent days for tests and consultations.

 

The uniforms have undergone a battery of tests, and the union, airline and supplier Twin Hill have all hired experts to determine the chemical composition of the uniforms.

So far, testing by American and Twin Hill have not turned up substances that aren’t supposed to be in the clothes or any chemical levels exceeding safety limits, the airline has said.

 

The union has hired its own toxicologist to examine the results. It has spent more than $20,000 so far and wants American to reimburse it for its expenses, Ross said.

Last week, the airline denied a grievance Ross had filed on behalf of sick attendants. “The safety and comfort of our team members is more important than anything we do, and we know it is at the forefront of the APFA’s mission too,” wrote Cindi Simone, American’s managing director of labour relations.

 

American has also reimbursed flight attendants who have bought new work clothes similar to the uniform. It says employees may wear their old uniforms, though many no longer have one.

The public contretemps has prompted supplier Twin Hill to complain that it is being maligned unfairly.

In a Jan. 9 letter to Ross, an executive at the Houston-based supplier, a unit of Tailored Brands Inc., denied any problems with the 1.4 million garments it had provided, citing tests by an independent laboratory it hired.

Union officials’ public statements “have been both inaccurate and damaging to Twin Hill’s reputation,” wrote Daryl Stilley, a senior vice-president at the company.

 

The company said it plans an all-cotton version of the uniform for those who have had problems with the ones made of wool and polyester, the two main fabrics now being worn.

 

Ross responded two days later, writing to Twin Hill that its letter had made him “angry and disheartened” and that the union would not be “bullied” in its efforts to protect flight attendants’ health.

 

Twin Hill has also accused the union of cancelling an appointment to jointly select uniform pieces from a Twin Hill centre in Houston, while American said it was waiting for the union to agree to a date.

 

The union argues that it wouldn’t make sense to pick pieces from that facility because they may have been manufactured somewhere other than where those causing problems were created.

The union wants to explore the interaction of dozens of chemicals used in the uniforms’ manufacturing, as well as their packaging.

“Say there’s five different chemicals they test, and they all stay within limits — synergistically, how do they interact?” Ross asked.

 

So far, the problem with the uniforms appears to be concentrated among American Airlines flight attendants.

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents about 3,300 flight attendants at American’s Envoy regional subsidiary, has received several complaints, but not to the same degree as the APFA, said AFA spokeswoman Taylor Garland.

 

“Clearly, there is a problem with the uniform rollout at American that requires immediate alternative uniform standards and an overhaul of the uniform rollout,” the union said in an e-mail.

American’s 15,000 pilots have not reported widespread problems with their new wool uniforms from Twin Hill, said Gregg Overman, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association.

 

The health mystery at American isn’t the first such dispute over flight attendants’ uniforms. In 2011, some Alaska Airlines flight attendants made similar complaints about their new uniforms, also from Twin Hill.

The next year, several flight attendants sued the supplier, contending their uniforms contained a dye known to cause skin and respiratory irritation. In September, a California court rejected the case and awarded Twin Hill legal fees from a few attendants who did not drop their claims.

 

Scott Poynter, the Little Rock, Ark., attorney who brought that suit, is now working with about 10 of the American flight attendants, as is Weitz & Luxenberg PC, a New York-based law firm that handles consumer and environmental litigation.

 

Several of the American attendants have also contacted prominent consumer advocate Erin Brockovich in search of help for their situation, Poynter said.

“There’s a lot of comparisons to make between the Alaska Airlines case and the American Airlines case,” Poynter said.

The Alaska Air suit failed, he said, because the judge did not accept the plaintiffs’ view that chemicals in the uniforms were interacting in ways that collectively caused the adverse reactions, from rashes to respiratory trouble. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that the uniforms were the cause. I believe the mixture theory is very solid.”

 

Still, he hopes to see the results of American’s uniform testing before deciding whether to sue.

“I think that the American flight attendants are right, too,” he said. “But from a legal standpoint, the testing is going to become very important. We’re looking at it.”

 

Heather Poole, an American flight attendant who lives near Los Angeles and has documented her reactions to the uniform on social media, said many other attendants are reluctant to speak publicly about their own reactions for fear they could be fired or sued.

 

“A hospital gown seems to be the most popular flight-attendant accessory this season,” she said. “That or an inhaler.”

[DEFCON]

There are many potential sources for allergens beyond the new uniforms.

 

[Guest]

American Airlines flight attendants plan to picket the carrier’s Fort Worth headquarters and several airports around the country Tuesday over what the union is calling “broken promises” to its members.

The pickets come four years to the day after American announced its merger with US Airways, a move that was backed at the time by American’s employee unions. But now, three years after the merger closed, leaders of the flight attendants union said the promised benefits from the merger haven’t materialized.

“With this new administration, we were all pretty much behind it. We’ve gotten behind [CEO] Doug Parker and [President] Robert Isom ... because we believe they have what it takes to propel American,” said Bob Ross, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.

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“It just has not transpired for us. Not in pay. Not in working conditions. We still do not have contracts where we’re all working together.”

In addition to American’s headquarters, the flight attendants plan to hold pickets at the company’s hub airports in Miami, Los Angeles and Charlotte, N.C.

American hasn’t commented specifically on the pickets, but said it supports “the rights of our team members to voice their opinions.”

“We will continue to work to address any concerns they have and support them the best we can,” American spokesman Matt Miller said.

The union has laid out a variety of different issues it wants American to address -- from scheduling to hotel accomodations to pay that lags their peers at other major airlines.

American accelerated a 6 percent raise due to flight attendants last April and also reinstituted profit-sharing for all employees last year. But Ross said the pay hasn’t kept pace with a new deal struck by United Airlines flight attendants and a raise given to Delta’s crew members.

Overall, the complaints largely stem from the progress -- or lack thereof, in the union’s view -- on implementing a post-merger contract that combined the American Airlines and US Airways flight attendant groups.

Many of the items in that contract are dependent on integrating those two groups, something that can’t be fully completed until American wraps up an overhaul of its technological systems.

While American said integrating its flight attendants group is a top priority -- it completed a similar integration for pilots in September -- company executives have said it will probably be a year or more before all the work is done.

In the meantime, Ross said the contract is being implemented “piecemeal,” leaving legacy American and legacy US Airways flight attendants working under different rules in certain situations.

There’s also the issue of new uniforms American debuted in September that, within a week, had some flight attendants reporting adverse reactions including headaches, rashes and breathing problems.

Complaints about the uniforms have continued to rise. The union said it has received more than 2,600 reports of medical issues so far, although the official number of reports filed with American is much lower.

While American has insisted the uniforms are safe and multiple rounds of tests haven’t revealed a culprit, the sides are negotiating over another round of joint testing. A formal union grievance demanding a recall of the uniforms is also winding through the arbitration process.

Ross said Tuesday’s picket isn’t about a single issue -- although the uniforms have been a major source of “dissatisfaction” -- and was instead triggered by an accumulation of problems the union feels aren’t being dealt with by American.

“There comes a time where, in order to really drive your point home, you need to sit down and talk. [American] needs to see that it’s not just coming from [our] office, it’s coming from the streets,” Ross said.

“It’s been one constant thing after another while they praise themselves for spending all this money on a new headquarters building, for refreshing the aircraft. The only ones they’re not investing in is their employees.”