A Southwest Airlines flight attendant has filed a lawsuit against the Dallas-based carrier because crew do not get paid for boarding and deplaning or other ground-based duties – a long-established pay structure at US airlines that is now starting to end.
Matthew Lanclos has worked for Southwest Airlines for nearly 20 years, and since 2013, he has been based at the carrier’s hub in Denver. Lanclos argues that Colorado’s ‘Wage and Hour Law’ should guarantee him the right to be paid for all the time he spends at work.
The lawsuit is likely to prove highly contentious as Southwest flight attendants only approved a new contract last year, which maintained the status quo in which crew members only start getting paid from the time the plane pushes back from the gate to the moment it arrives at its destination.
In fact, Southwest’s flight attendants don’t get paid a traditional hourly rate but earn money through a Trips for Pay’ system. One TFP is equivalent to flying a certain distance, which is around 243 miles or 55 minutes of flight time.
Lanclos argues that this system disadvantages flight attendants because they spend a lot of time effectively working for free.
In a recently filed lawsuit, Lanclos claims the unpaid work starts up to 75 minutes before a flight when crew members first arrive at the aircraft to complete mandatory pre-flight tasks and start boarding passengers.
Unpaid work then resumes once the aircraft arrives at its destination, when flight attendants deplane...
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