United flight attendants protest staffing cuts, picket outside airports

Hundreds of United flight attendants on Thursday protested outside several airports against staffing cuts, the first demonstrations by the airline's largest labour group in more than two years. United is planning to reduce staffing by one flight attendant per flight in its international business cabins and will have meals pre-plated by ground caterers instead of having flight attendants take on that task. The staffing aboard flights varies depending on the length of the flight and the type of aircraft that is used. They will still be above minimum requirements set by the FAA, according to the flight attendants' union. But flight attendants argue that fewer crew-members on board will put both safety and customer service at risk. "We need them there," said a 20-year United flight attendant who was picketing outside Newark Liberty International Airport and declined to give her name. Protests were planned outside 16 different United hub airports Thursday. "They're our eyes. It's about safety." United's CEO Oscar Munoz said the reductions would bring the airline more in line with those of its main rivals, American and Delta. "Change is difficult," Munoz said on a call with reporters Wednesday to announce new international routes and new flights from its hub in San Francisco. "We'd been staffed higher than all other of our major our major competitors on those flights... It is not about taking people out of the system or anything but we're a competitive financial business as well. Everyone in the United family is contributing and this is a way that we're going to ask our flight attendants to do that as well."<br/>