I wish I had spoken with more flight attendants from other airlines before I applied for this company.
United simply has the absolute worst reserve system in the industry. After working here for nearly 3 years, I am still on ready reserve with no end in sight. What this means is that for my 20 days a month that I am scheduled to work, I am on call 24 hours a day. This may not sound that bad to some, but believe me this gets old very fast when you get calls at 2 am for a 6 am flight. You cannot have a life, nor can you get used to any sort of sleep schedule and often get sick frequently as a result of all the sleep deprivation. The union that I pay $50 a month for is fairly useless when it comes to enforcing a contract that I wasn't even eligible to vote for when I began.
Crew scheduling is frequently breaking the rules and we as flight attendants are just supposed to suck it up, fly whatever is assigned to us, and "grieve it later". Reserves are used and frequently abused and if I knew this is how life would be at the company I would've run in the opposite direction. Morale is low amongst the flight attendants and it isn't a happy place to work. Even many of the more senior flight attendants who are making great money are bitter and jaded from all the years of abuse they've put up with from the company.
To add to this, United has the most confusing payment system I have ever encountered, and mistakes on your paycheck are frequent. I feel as though United profits from this confusing payment system. From what I've heard, there have been many lawsuits filed because of the unclear pay checks.
I cannot recommend this company to any flight attendants at the least due to the miserable reserve system, and definitely because of the payment situation. There are many other airlines to work for with better conditions than this.
For those who choose to stay, you MUST learn to negotiate a better contract for reserves the next time around.
