Laura Glading is a labor union activist and leader. She was elected president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants in February 2008. Glading was elected to a second term in February 2012. Following American Airlines' bankruptcy and merger with US Airways. Shortly after departing from APFA the board of directors described her behavior in her leadership role as traitorous and reprehensible.
Career
Glading was an active member of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the independent union that has represented the flight attendants at American Airlines, since the 1970s. She rose through the union hierarchy to be elected president in 2008. Glading pushed for and was appointed as one of nine members of the Unsecured Creditors’ Committee overseeing American Airlines’ bankruptcy. Glading was an outspoken advocate in support of the American Airlines–US Airways merger and did everything in her power to make the plan a reality. She appeared alongside the Allied Pilots Association to urge approval of the planned merger over U.S. Justice Department opposition. In September 2013, Glading met with top antitrust officials at the U.S. Justice Department following a rally in Washington. After she helped broker the $16 billion merger deal bringing the two companies together, Glading found a way to represent the combined flight attendant group. In December 2014, the APFA reached a Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement that most considered forced down the throats of the membership and a far cry from the pay, benefits and scheduling that was enjoyed in the APFA membership's pre-9/11 contract. Glading has spoken publicly on a number of issues relating to flight attendant safety and security, including a submission to the United States House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security in April 2013 where she opposed a Transportation Security Administration initiative to permit small knives on planes. The TSA subsequently reversed its decision to allow knives on planes in June 2013. On October 3, 2015, Glading sent a letter to the membership of APFA stating that she would resign as APFA National President on December 2, 2015. On October 5, 2015, she met with the Board Of Directors and then announced that she would step down on October 9, 2015. Due mostly in part of the lack of confidence from the membership and later evident deal with AA and her new consulting business, rumored to be brokered due to pushing for cuts that benefited the company and through her relative in AA's management. Months after Laura Glading resigned from APFA she began forming her own company called Laura Glading & Associates which was filed with NYS Department of State Division of Corporations on December 30, 2015. This company was retained as a consulting firm by American Airlines, sparking outrage in the APFA ranks, as well as suspicions of collusion in her previous role. Laura Glading is looked at by her flight attendant peers as having sold them down the river with massive cuts in pay and benefits, along with horrendous working conditions through a forced contract following bankruptchy, all for her own personal gain through back door deals and agreements to use her upcoming firm. Now considered the most unethical and self-serving APFA president in its history. In June 2016 Laura Glading was hired by the Federal Aviation Administration in charge of labor and employee relations within the Human Resource Management office in Washington D.C.
