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"Fly Girls,"\u00a0a new reality television show debuting Wednesday on the CW network, boasts that its cameras follow five \u201cbeautiful\u201d Virgin America flight attendants as \u201cthey jet from one glamorous location to the next\u201d from their home base in Marina Del Rey.<\/p>\n
But a union trying to organize Virgin America flight attendants says the new show falls somewhat short of reality. The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) has purchased time to air a contentious 30-second spot during the premier of "Fly Girls." <\/p>\n
The text asks viewers to \u201csupport us for a secure future\u201d as Virgin America\u2019s currently unorganized flight attendants seek to affiliate with the TWU.<\/p>\n
\u201cVirgin is a fun, hip place to work, however not all aspects of the job are fun and hip,\u201d Eric Aquino, a Virgin America flight attendant who appears in the commercial, said in a union statement.<\/p>\n
The union says Virgin America\u2019s flight attendants typically earn less than $30,000 a year — hardly enough to sustain the ocean-view apartments and hard-party lifestyle depicted on the program. According to the union, some San Francisco-based attendants unable to afford Bay Area housing have slept in their cars or in the crew lounges.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The union also notes that about one-third of Virgin America\u2019s roughly 500 flight attendants are men — \u201cfly boys,\u201d that is.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still live with my parents in Orange County,\u201d said flight attendant Manny Artavia in the union statement. \u201cI\u2019m lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an e-mail response, Virgin America spokeswoman Abby Lunardini called the union\u2019s characterizations \u201cmisleading and actually suspect.\u201d She said the airline\u2019s salaries are \u201ccompetitive with the industry\u201d and noted that \u201cteammates\u201d (employees) are eligible for health benefits and flight privileges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think that when people actually have had the chance to watch the show, they will see that it is focused primarily on a few teammates\u2019 lives away from work, but they\u2019ll also see that when working, the crew members featured are smart, pleasant, professional and take the business of flying seriously,\u201d Lunardini said.<\/p>\n
Virgin America cooperated with the show, opening up the airline to the production crew, she said. A Virgin America executive has said "Fly Girls" illustrates how the company is \u201cbringing the style and fun back to flying.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company serves about a dozen cities on the West and East coasts, with cross-country service between the coasts.<\/p>\n
— Patrick J. McDonnell<\/p>\n
Photo: "Fly Girls." Virgin America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
"Fly Girls,"\u00a0a new reality television show debuting Wednesday on the CW network, boasts that its cameras follow five \u201cbeautiful\u201d Virgin America flight attendants as \u201cthey jet from one glamorous location to the next\u201d from their home base in Marina Del Rey. But a union trying to organize Virgin America flight attendants says the new show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}