Flight attendants at Frontier Airlines will no longer pool any gratuity left for the in-flight crew, and now will be working for their own tips, Bloomberg reported .
The reported change went into effect on Jan. 1, Bloomberg reported.
“We appreciate the great work of our flight attendants and know that our customers do as well, so [the payment tablet] gives passengers the option to tip,” Frontier spokesman Jonathan Freed told Bloomberg. “It’s entirely at the customer’s discretion, and many do it.”
Frontier Airlines started allowing tipping as an option for customers three years ago. Those tips were then pooled together, and would be split among the crew following the flight.
The Association of Flight Attendants told Bloomberg that it remains opposed to tipping flight attendants. A representative for the union said, "Management moved forward with a tipping option for passengers in hopes it would dissuade flight attendants from standing together for a fair contract—and in an effort to shift additional costs to passengers."
In November, Frontier Airlines employees who are part of the Association of Flight Attendants voted to authorize a strike following an impasse in labor negotiations.
According to 2017 statistics compiled by Time and Hopper , Frontier Airlines had the cheapest fares of any domestic carrier, with the average fare going for $111.
