The Association of Flight Attendants (commonly known as the AFA) is a union representing most flight attendants in the United States. They currently represent over 46,000 Flight Attendants at 22 airlines A union (labor union in American English; trade union in Commonwealth English) is an organisation formed by workers. ... Flight attendants, formerly called sky girls, air hostesses, stewardesses and stewards hold the primary responsibility for the safety and comfort of airline passengers. ... An airline is an organization providing aviation services to passengers and/or cargo. ...

In the early days of the Flight Attendant profession, Flight Attendants fit a very narrow description: young, single registered nurses who met height, weight and appearance requirements. One of those stewardesses was Ada Brown, who was hired by United Airlines in 1940.

In 1943, Brown spent a year working in management as Assistant and Chief Stewardess before she rejoined the line stewardesses in 1944. Brown recognized the widespread discrimination that stewardesses faced on the job, and how badly they needed to organize to improve their pay and working conditions.

"We hadn't had an increase in pay in 15 years," Brown explained later. "We had no rules or regulations about flight time. If a stewardess didn't show up to replace you on multi-stops across the country, the company would just say, ‘You have to continue flying.' And we had no grievance procedure."

Brown and a group of her flying partners signed up almost 300 women, and formed the world's first stewardess union at United, the Air Line Stewardess Association (ALSA). "I know management never thought we'd really do it," Brown recalled. "As far as I know, we were the first women to have negotiated a contract on our own."

ALSA was established on August 22, 1945 and Ada Brown was elected president. The first stewardess agreement was signed April 16, 1946. All future flight attendants at United now had a forum to negotiate for their rates of pay, rules, and working conditions.

Brown's commitment to organizing was legendary – and contagious. "We've already started organizing at several airlines," Brown explained at the time, "and I hope to start the others going very shortly. We want this to become a national association."

Today, thanks to Ada Brown, and other brave, forward-thinking women and men, flight attendants at United Airlines and 25 other carriers are represented by the union that grew from ALSA: The Association of Flight Attendants.

The AFA has used a tactic in the past, known as the 'C.H.A.O.S. Strike' which stands for 'Create Havoc Around Our System'. In this type of strike, individual flight attendants are asked to leave their duty. This will place an affected flight under the minimum flight attendant staffing requirement of the FAA, thus the flight is delayed or cancelled. Flights operated by smaller aircraft are most likely to be affected by 'CHAOS'. The Federal Aviation Administration is the entity of the United States government which regulates and oversees all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S. // Activities Along with the European Joint Aviation Authorities, the FAA is one of the two main agencies worldwide responsible for the certification of new aircraft. ... An aircraft is any machine capable of atmospheric flight. ...

External links

• Official site