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Mask mandate debate 'puts flight attendants in harm’s way': AFA-CWA president

Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President Sara Nelson speaks with Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita about the strain flight attendants are under as COVID-19 cases surge and unruly passengers disrupt air travel.

Video transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, just three days to go until Christmas. And millions of Americans are getting ready to fly out to their holiday destinations. But with so much uncertainty around the Omicron variant and the recent rise in unruly passengers, flight crews are being forced to prepare for the worst this holiday season. Let's bring in Sara Nelson, Association of Flight Attendants, CWA President.

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And Sara, we got some troubling news from IATA, which is the trade group that represents the world's largest airlines. Their top medical advisor saying that he believes that Omicron variant is much more transmissible on the plane. He said specifically that the variant doubles the risk of getting infected on a plane. I have to imagine all these headlines have only added to the stress level for some of your members.

SARA NELSON: Absolutely. A year ago as we were going into the holiday season here, we weren't sure if Congress was going to get in place or if President Trump was going to sign the emergency relief that would return people to their jobs, and have us be trained in our certification and be able to do our jobs. So we understand that the safety of our workspace also directly relates to our economic security as well.

And as we've been on the front lines for the last two years dealing with all of the stresses of this pandemic, to have a new variant that is spreading like wildfire and to try to focus people back on the basic procedures to stop the spread as much as you can with the controlled environment, proper hand hygiene, making sure that you're wearing that mask all the time, getting the airlines to cool it on the increased service provision so that we don't have more interaction on the plane than we need to have, making sure that those HEPA filters, where they exist, are being run all the time on the ground and in the air so that we're helping with that filtration, and also the deep cleaning. But all of that layered approach has to be in place in order to have the most controlled environment we can possibly have and try to mitigate that spread.

AKIKO FUJITA: What specifically have you seen in terms of impact on flight attendants? I mean, we've heard so many stories of those who are close to us getting infected at a rate we haven't seen during the pandemic. Are you seeing the same? And are airlines able to keep their staff in place at the busiest time with the infections you're seeing?

SARA NELSON: Well, it's an issue. It's an issue, Akiko. And what we saw this fall was that due to COVID concerns, and also due to the disruptive passengers, even though we have more flight attendants on staff across the industry than we had pre-pandemic if you can pair it with the number of flight hours the airlines are running, people are just not willing to pick up the overtime hours at the same rate that they were before the pandemic because of these concerns, because they're getting sick, actually, and they're using that sick time. And also because their families and they are a little reticent about spending more time in the air when we've been getting beat up.

So this is a serious concern. And what we did to try to address this over the holidays was to negotiate incentive pay that provides a pretty hefty financial incentive for flight attendants to pick up time so that we can keep the operation going. But it is a real stress and strain. And it is very difficult for flight attendants on the front lines right now.

AKIKO FUJITA: You talk about the stress and strain. We've seen plenty of those videos of unruly passengers. And I think last time we spoke, you talked about having essentially a ban list for those who have had to be kicked off of planes. We've got the FAA now saying that passengers could lose their TSH pre-check if, in fact, they are cited. Does that go far enough in your opinion?

SARA NELSON: Look, I think it's a good step. And any time that you have coordination between agencies to work on this, it is a step in the right direction. So FAA having the Zero Tolerance Policy, having the MOU with the DOJ on getting their investigations over to DOJ for criminal prosecution, and then working with TSA on telling people that you're not going to be able to go through security quickly if you are acting out, these are steps that all lead to additional action and create a layered approach to deterrent for people to act out on planes.

So it's a good step. Does it go far enough? No. We say next up is that banned list. And we want to keep pressing the agencies to work harder together to have more mitigation factors in place to get these events down on the plane and lift the risk, the incredible risk to aviation right now with the high record breaking number of events this past year of disruptive passengers.

AKIKO FUJITA: How much support are you getting from the airlines on that front? I mean, I know you testified before Congress last week, maybe two weeks ago, along with the executives of the major airlines. You know, your members are the ones that are having to deal with this. We had the CEO of Southwest saying that he doesn't really feel masks are needed. And you know, maybe he's pulled back that statement since. But those types of statements only add, I'd imagine, to the resistance that we're hearing from passengers.

SARA NELSON: Look, I was really concerned about this hearing going forward before the holidays because I expected that we would have some sort of mask debate. I did not expect it to come from the witness table, frankly. And that was a really unfortunate moment. Gary Kelly corrected the record with me right after the hearing and said he was with us on masks and understands that it has to be the layered approach. He was talking specifically about HEPA filtration. But we need that in place for safety and also for confidence from the public to actually buy airplane tickets.

So he's corrected that since. But those kinds of comments and keeping in the air that there is a debate over needing to wear masks puts flight attendants in harm's way, because people come to the door of the airplane thinking that there's a question there rather than understanding that they simply have to follow the rules, the rules are in place for a good reason, and everyone has to do it in order for all of us to remain safe.

AKIKO FUJITA: And that's just one layer to keep flight attendants safe. Do you think that vaccines should be mandated for passengers who are boarding some of these flights? I mean, it feels like that the standard, the evaluation is shifting by the day.

SARA NELSON: Yeah, traditionally vaccine mandates have been employer-based. That's the way that they have rolled out. And they've also rolled out in our school system. So we don't really have an example of that being mandated for passengers on airlines. And we don't have a great way of tracking that and being able to implement that. Well, I appreciate what everyone is saying, just like we heard from our members who said that they very much supported a vaccine mandate at work because they didn't want to be working with people who weren't vaccinated.

The fact of the matter is that we have to work very hard to get everyone vaccinated around the world because this isn't just about our country. Wherever there are low vaccination rates, this virus can continue to live and mutate and create havoc just like it is right now with Omicron. So we think that whatever we can do to push people to understand that they're doing their part by getting vaccinated, the better off we're going to be and the sooner we're going to be able to live in a COVID controlled world. Maybe not getting rid of it completely forever, but in a controlled way so that we can get back to living our lives and feeling the full freedom of pre-pandemic era.

AKIKO FUJITA: And finally, Sara, we had Randi Weingarten from the American Federation of Teachers on the other day talking about just the challenges teachers have had to face during the pandemic. She essentially said teachers are just bone tired right now. And I'd imagine.

I know we were talking in the break, but flight attendants have also had to cope with so much not just about their safety, but also passengers too. Has that affected recruitment? What's the sentiment right now among your members two years in?

SARA NELSON: Randi and I were on the phone last night talking about this very issue and the fact that people feeling exhausted and getting beaten down is creating a problem. It's creating a problem for their ability to be able to get back in the saddle, come back to work and do their jobs. And if we allow pandemic fatigue to sit in and don't continue to work every single day to try to eradicate these issues to stop this violence towards frontline workers who are just doing their jobs to protect the people in their care, then we are really going to unravel the entire structure of our society and break down our economy again.

So there's a lot at risk here for not paying attention to the fact that we all need to call for solidarity in backing up front line workers, teachers, flight attendants, grocery store workers, retail workers. We've got to get behind everyone. And health care workers, frankly. We've got a lot of stories now about health care workers taking abuse and physical violence from patients.

This is just not going to allow us to continue to do the work that we need to do to care for people and keep a civil society. So it's time for all of us that really know how to treat each other and want to treat each other well, want to have a peaceful holidays, to take an extra effort to reach out to our neighbors and our friends, give them support. Thank the people where we go into businesses and interact with people, or when we get on planes or go into classrooms, and recognize that everyone is trying to do their level best to keep everyone safe and to get on with this and go to a better place.

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, Sara, I hope you get some time off during the holidays. It is much deserved. Sara Nelson, Association of Flight Attendants, CWA President. Thanks for joining us today.