That headline goes out to all our flying partners over at American Airlines. 

Most of the time, flight attendants are regulated to the background by the airline companies.  As long as we are pouring coffee with big smiles, fetching baby bottles, and waving goodbye, then heck: we're no trouble at all.  Back to our supervisor rating bonuses for the 3rd Quarter!  Go task team go!

"With almost 10,000 jobs hanging in the balance, and the future of 100,000 employees at stake, we agreed to take this risk and make this investment for our employees," Carty said of the vote extension. "This is our last chance to avoid bankruptcy."

That was a statement that Donald J. Carty, chairman and chief executive of AMR Corp., made on Tuesday.  He clearly indicated that the company would pay ole Judge Weinhoffenbankrupt whoever a visit and seek bankruptcy protection unless the flight attendants join two other union groups in approving "their portion" of $1.8 billion in labor cuts.

Well, the American Airlines flight attendants didn't.  Whatever their reasons, and I can sure as hell bet they had important ones specific to them, the AA flight attendants cast 9,842 "no" votes to 9,309 "yes" votes.

Game over?  Not quite.

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants told the press that hundreds of members could not access PIN numbers to vote and did not receive information on the contract until Monday, making a deadline extension necessary.  They even asked AA management for an extension, but were denied the request at first---a stupid bull-tactic decision that AA reconsidered late Tuesday after the outcome of the vote.

Not only that, but during the voting period itself, American Airlines management offered one-time bonuses of up to 4.5 percent, perhaps by 2006, if the company's credit ratings improve sharply.  Some of the flight attendants voted before American management offered them this 'bonus'.  Pilots and members of the Transport Workers Unions were allowed to change their votes, and both of those groups ended up voting 'yes'.

So now what?

Even though AMR threatened their flight attendants with their silly prior 'deadline', they have now changed their tune (It lost by only 533 votes dammit those F/As!!!!  Grrrr!!!) and stated that their flight attendants will be allowed to continue voting -- and to change their votes -- until 6 p.m. EDT Wednesday.

And so, our flying partners at American Airlines are continuing their voting today.  I'm sure it will pass this time around.

You can bet the eyes of the industry, the flying public, the stock market, and the U.S. Government will be very interested in what the AA flight attendants think today.

And so will Donald J. Carty.