Airline pays $80,000 a month for Hawaii crew

Press, 10 January 1986, Page 1

Airline pays $80,000 a month for Hawaii crew

By

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor

Air New Zealand is paying an estimated $BO,OOO a month to keep 19 senior cabin attendants in Hawaii to work once a week on its new service to Canada.

The crew leave Honolulu for Vancouver each Sunday at 9 a.m. and return the same day at 11.15 p.m. Their duty time spans 16 hours, 11 of which are spent in the air. They then have six days off until the next Sunday’s flight to Vancouver. The attendants live in apartments paid for by the airline. They also receive an expense allowance of about $BO a day. According to informed sources, the whole deal is costing Air . New Zealand about $BO,OOO a month. The attendants spend 10 weeks at a time In Hawaii. A new crew flew to Honolulu this week io replace the attendants who have been there since the Canhdian link was begun in November. ’ They are permitted to take their spouses and chil-

dren with them, but they must pay for their expenses. The attendants have been based at Honolulu under a special agreement hammered out between the airline and stewards and hostesses’ union. The move was initiated by the company. Normally 17 cabin attendants crew any of the airline’s flights where the duty period exceeds 12 hours. However, 19 are living in Honolulu to allow for sickness. All 19 work the Vancouver service, making it one of the highest crew-to-passenger ratios of any air- ‘ line in the world. An airline spokesman said yesterday that. the attendants having their own appartments worked out • cheaper than paying for accommodation at hotels. He could not give precise details of the rentals, but

r estimated they cost about SUS4O a day. i The spokesman said the i airline considered the bast ing of the crew in Hawaii * was the best of a number of I options open to it. ! This did not mean that the arrangement was a permanent one, he emphasised. “Nothing is set in concrete,” he said. ' The airline is running short on cabin crews at i present. Yesterday, about 80 of its 1000 attendants were still on sick leave. According to a union • source, domestic attendants are. being pushed through the international conversion 1 • course in Jour days instead of the usual three, weeks. The next four intakes of domestic trainees will also be 30 strong instead of the i • usual 15.. About 300. new attendants ; will be trained this year.