The announcement by American Airlines that it plans to hire 1,500 new flight attendants to replace the more highly paid ones it is getting rid of has raised an alarm with convenience store owners across the nation.
“It’s a case of poaching, pure and simple,” claims convenience store spokesperson, Bob Payne, who says he is already getting reports that convenience store clerks who would normally be using their breaks to filch items from store shelves are now instead filling out flight attendant application forms.
“The fear in the industry,” Payne said, “is that the perceived glamour of a flight attendant job will create an allure too strong for many convenience store clerks to overcome, even though a starting flight attendant gets paid less.”
Payne said convenience store owners feel doubly ill-treated because many of the skills they spend weeks training their employees for – dispensing beverages, keeping certain doors locked, differentiating a normally angry customer from a deranged one — are just the skills the airlines are seeking, too.
In related news, a report just out shows that the number of American Airlines pilots who are applying for jobs at convenience stores is at an all-time high.
