American Airlines flight attendants caught selling premium trips illegally

AMERICAN AIRLINES BOEING 737-823 N831NN (MSN 33211)

American Airlines has implemented a strict crackdown on flight attendants who use code words to unlawfully sell premium international trips. These unauthorized, often involving monetary transactions, have bypassed the airline's established seniority-based scheduling system.

The airline’s investigation revealed that some crew members were offering coveted trips like Paris (CDG), London (LHR), and Rome (FCO) to junior flight attendants at a price, undermining the fairness of the bidding process set by the Fort Worth-based carrier.

American Airlines utilizes a seniority-driven bidding system for assigning trips. Flight attendants with more years of service enjoy priority access to preferred international routes and schedules.

Flights to prominent destinations such as Paris (CDG), London (LHR), and Rome (FCO) are generally assigned to senior crew members. In contrast, junior flight attendants are often allocated less favorable domestic routes or placed on reserve status, with minimal control over their schedules.

In response, some have allegedly resorted to paying their senior colleagues for access to premium trips—an act explicitly prohibited by company policy.

To avoid detection, those involved reportedly used code words like “cookies,” “hugs,” “kisses,” or even “thanks” to discreetly signal that a trip trade involved monetary compensation. These terms were widely recognized within AA’s crew network as covert indicators of paid swaps.

An internal audit recently conducted by American Airlines specific patterns within the trip trading system. Consequently, airline issued a firm warning through an internal memo, emphasizing that "trips are not personal property" and "cannot be bought, sold, or brokered."