Airline passengers, try not to whine about pillows and peanuts.
''Where do we start over?'' 52-year-old flight attendant Kathy Lynch was asking. ''How do you make up lost ground that you just found out you lost?''
There were no answers the day after a federal bankruptcy judge cleared the way for United Airlines to dump its retirement pensions for 120,000 current and retired workers. With 31 years of service, Lynch is one of them. So were the three women gathered in Lynch's San Carlos living room, just a short drive from San Francisco International Airport. Pat Burkett, injured in a fall, retired from United in February at 62. Kathi Yett, 60, is two years away from retirement with 40 years of service. Kelly Stahl, with 14 years at the ailing airline, is 35.
They don't know how much their pensions ultimately will be. They know the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. must work with the shortfall United has.
The past four years have been hard. ''We had 9/11. Then we had the declaration of bankruptcy. Then we had harsh pay cuts. And now the pensions,'' Lynch said. ''There's so much accumulated trauma.''
Flight attendants do more than sling meal boxes. They're the in-flight firefighters and emergency medical technicians. They comfort the sick. Now they are supposed to defend the cockpit.
Many had weighed their emotions in deciding to stay these last couple of years. Now they feel like pawns.
''There's only so much of us left emotionally to go around,'' said Lynch.
You can hear the planes circling the approach to the San Francisco Airport from Lynch's home. She doesn't mind the noise. Stahl's feelings are clear from her license plate: LUV2FLY. They weren't at the airline for the money. It was the people. The places. The camaraderie. And the unspoken trust, even among workers thrown together for the first time, that comes from knowing your lives depend on each other.
But the love is wearing thin. The company that once felt like family seems uncaring. And air travel itself has become more like mass transit.
Burkett knew the glory days.
''I was hired at 20, at the beginning of the jet age,'' she said. ''I'm sorry to have it end with a whimper, rather than a bang.''
The airlines managed every aspect then. ''I had to wear blue eye shadow -- no eyeliner -- and a girdle,'' Yett said. ''I weighed 92 pounds. A girdle!''
Stahl, the most junior of the four, hasn't seen much glory. With a $37,000 income last year, she is on a waiting list for low-income housing in San Mateo County. ''It was embarrassing at first, but now I don't care.''
Yett assesses the new realities:
''I'm 60. I have no way of making up what I'm losing in my pension. I'm paying more for health care benefits. And I've had two pay cuts in the last two years. Oh, and the federal government wants to reorganize Social Security.''
A strike threatened by the airline's labor unions now looms, but there was an even bigger question on Yett's mind:
''If it's good enough for me at 60 to go through all this, why isn't it good enough for the CEO or our board of directors?''
United CEO Glenn F. Tilton, 56, has two years of service at United's helm -- and a $4.5 million pension trust that is protected from the bankruptcy proceedings. Directors thought it a reasonable offer to lure him from Chevron.
Lynch longs for leadership in the old style, like Lee Iacocca, the legendary president of Chrysler, who drew only a $1 salary while he brought company back to health (with a government loan). Troops would follow someone who set that kind of example, she said.
Looks like those days aren't coming back.
So passengers, forgive the flight attendants if their smiles seem rather wan. And save the bankruptcy jokes.
