Airline Drops Gratuity Ban And Curbside Fee, But Adds Another In Its Place

Bowing to pressure Friday from some of its lowest-paid workers, American Airlines agreed to drop a $2-per-bag fee for check-in service curbside at airports around the United States as well as the lift of a ban on tips for skycaps at Logan International Airport.

Skycaps for American at Logan agreed to drop a federal claim in exchange. As ANN reported, that claim accused the airline of retaliating against the skycaps for their win in a recent lawsuit against American by imposing the ban on tips as of May 1.

According to the Boston Globe, last month a jury in US District Court in Boston awarded $325,000 to a group of nine current and former skycaps about for tips they lost when the airline implemented the curbside baggage fee in September 2005.

Drafted in the corridor of a federal courthouse by lawyers for each sides to avoid a court hearing on the tips ban, Friday's agreement appeased skycaps who complained their income has decreased due to the $2 fee and the drought of additional income from gratuities.

"I feel vindicated," said Don DiFiore, a 25 year veteran American skycap at Logan to the Globe. "We've gotten rid of the $2-a-bag charge, and we're going to have some language on the sign [at the curb] saying tipping is allowed now."

The concessions will take effect on June 15.

Other skycaps feel the airline merely found another way to offset the $2 baggage fee by adding a larger fee -- namely, American's recently announcement of an additional $15 for many passengers to check in a single piece of luggage at either curbside or within the terminal. The fee follows an earlier decision by the airline to join the trend among other US carriers to charge $25 to check a second piece of luggage as a measure to help defray the costs incurred by rising fuel prices.

"They're making seven times as much" with the new $15 fee than the airline did with the $2 fee, said Tony Pasuy, another longtime American skycap. "Why do they need to nickel and dime the passengers when they're making seven times as much?"

The agreement does not address whether American skycaps in Boston will get to keep raises in hourly wages started after the curbside fees went into effect. After the tips ban began, the airline promised them another raise.

Tim Smith, a spokesman for American, told the Globe he does not know whether the airline will roll back the hourly wages as a result of the concessions. When American established the curbside fees, its Texas-based subcontractor, G2 Secure Staff, raised the wages of skycaps from $2.63 to $5.15 an hour. Most of the skycaps were promised a raise to $12 an hour when the tips ban went into effect.

The agreement will also not stop other legal actions currently in process. Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the skycaps, is pursuing another pending class-action suit on behalf of American skycaps in airports across the US Similar to the suit filed and won by skycaps in Boston, American skycaps elsewhere contend that they lost tips when $2 curbside baggage fees took effect three years ago.

"We urge the airlines not to continue the $2-per-bag charge, which passengers mistake as the skycaps' tips," she said.

FMI: www.aa.com