Delta Airlines Attendants Reject Union

By Charles Riley, staff reporterNovember 4, 2010: 9:09 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Delta Air Lines says its flight attendants have voted to forego union representation.

Delta (DAL, Fortune 500), the Atlanta-based carrier that two years ago merged with Northwest Airlines, said late Wednesday it has received notification from the National Mediation Board that a majority of its flight attendants voted to reject representation by the Association of Flight Attendants.

***

While I think that was a wise decision, it still does not detract from my observation that Delta Airlines has a less than wonderful record for delays and baggage losses plus the employees can downright surly when it comes to customer service relations, especially in Atlanta.

Yesterday in Memphis, we sat at or near the gate for an hour while some kind of conversation between the pilot, the control tower and Delta management discussed whether or not we could depart. The first explanation said something about refueling but it was a short flight to Baton Rouge and seemed unlikely that they would have not figured that into the schedule. Later, the pilot announced that it involved the plane had to be connected to some kind of electrical unit.

After about 45 minutes, the temperature in the plane had probably risen close to 90° and several passengers had already began steaming and hurling insults at Delta in general and the poor old (yes, old) flight attendant in particular. The guy sitting beside me was wearing a pin stripe suit, a pair of 20 year older style P3 Luxotica tortoise shell glasses and fanning himself. Every few seconds he would give an exasperated sigh and fidget with his cuff-links. He eventually came out of the jacket and began frantically writing on his Blackberry which we were not supposed to be doing with the door on the aircraft closed.

The flustered flight attendant knew no more about why we weren't in the friendly skies than we did but she took the brunt of the insults from the irate seat holders. Even though I do have a pretty low opinion of Delta crew members in general, I truly felt sorry for her. (See Grace The Flight Attendant)

The lady across the row from me yelled, "Open the damned door!" Shortly before a full mutiny ensued, we felt the plane jerk and realize we were being pushed out onto the tarmac and eventually the flight lane. After we were in the air, the cabin temperature cooled as well as the emotions of the paying customers but we still arrived an hour late in Baton Rouge.

A couple of years ago, I was on a Delta flight sitting behind a guy that has spiked hair so extreme that the top of it touched the overhead baggage compartment and made the tallest spike bend over like a broken palm frond.

Finding that amusing, I pulled out my phone (in the airplane mode) and was about to take a picture when the flight attendant loudly proclaimed, "YOU CAN'T USE A CELL PHONE ON DIS AIRPLANE !"

"Yes Ma'am, I understand but this phone is on Airplane Mode", I politely answered.

"I don't care what kind of mode you have but I can plainly see it be a cell phone!"

"Yes Ma'am, it is a cell phone but I have the phone part disabled and using only the camera."

"I don't know nothing about no airplane mode and if you don't cut it off rat now, you gone be in big trouble!"

Realizing you have to pick your battles, I cut it off, muttered under my breath and fumed the remainder of the trip. That's just one of my many battles with the lovely and gracious people with Delta Airlines and can only imagine how much it would have accelerated had they voted to become a union shop.