Flight attendants at low-cost airline Southwest Airlines are losing patience after trying to negotiate a new contract for two years, writes Stacey Hirsh

After a M.A.S.H. television show-themed company holiday party several years ago, Southwest Airlines chairman and founder Mr Herb Kelleher strolled out to an airplane hangar to visit the maintenance crew in his Corporal Klinger costume - a long, lacy, pink dress with a floppy purple hat and gloves.

Risque, perhaps, for a typical company, but Southwest is anything but typical. Employees wear sandals and Hawaiian shirts to work for "tacky tourist day".

The airline's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker LUV, apropos of its nickname as the "love" airline. The workers' shenanigans have even become fodder for a reality television show that chronicles inner workings of the airline business.

"When you have a tone set at that level, you feel like you have a lot of freedom to have fun with your co-workers and your customers," said Ms Ginger Hardage, a company spokeswoman.

But behind the goofs and gags of the airline that makes flying a little less serious, flight attendants paint a much different portrait: of an unfair employer.

The airline's flight attendants, who have been negotiating a new contract for close to two years, say they are working hundreds of unpaid hours each year. They also say they earn below the industry average, while other Southwest employees are better compensated for their work.

Flight attendants complain that they're not paid for time spent on such tasks as security checks, assisting disabled travellers or children flying alone, helping with luggage and cleaning the airplane between flights. They work an estimated 23 unpaid hours per month, they said.

"Is there any other workforce that goes to work five days a week and is only paid for three-and-a-half days?" asked Mr Cuyler Thompson, a Southwest flight attendant for nine years, during a recent picket outside Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

Southwest said it is anxious to reach a contract agreement with the flight attendants. The company believes the workers deserve a new contract and pay increases, Ms Hardage said.

"We have presented a contract, and we hope the union will provide that directly to the flight attendants" she said. "It's with industry-leading pay raises, profitability bonuses, stock options and other features that we believe our flight attendants deserve."

Details of the proposed contract have not been made public.

While many airlines struggle in a post-September 11th, price-war environment, Southwest turned a profit last year for its 31st consecutive year. In January, the airline reported a net income of $442 million (€356.3 million) in 2003, compared with a net income of $241 million the previous year. The airline had revenue of $5.9 billion in 2003, up from $5.5 billion in 2002.

With business prospering, Southwest workers such as mechanics and pilots have seen their contracts improve, said Mr Robert Mann, president of R.W. Mann & Co, an industry analyst in New York.

The corporate culture at Southwest is, within the air industry, famously relaxed: Flight attendants can wear tennis shoes and walking shorts to work, pilots wear leather bomber jackets.

When flight attendants go over safety procedures at the beginning of each flight, their lines are often delivered with a joke. Company executives once settled a battle with another company over an advertising slogan by an arm-wrestling match.

"We like to say: 'We take the competition seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously'," Ms Hardage said.

The attitude at Southwest is so unusual that the A&E television network launched a reality television show on Monday nights that follows Southwest workers in their travels across the country.

The programme Airline, portrays Southwest workers in their daily jobs, from manning a flight, carrying penguins in the cabin to hosting an impromptu version of The Price Is Right while in-flight in honour of a female passenger en route to Los Angeles to fulfil her lifelong dream of being on the game show.

"The great thing about Southwest was that they are known for their antics: They've sort of put the fun back in airline travel," said Ms Patrice Andrews, a supervising producer for the show. "It's given us a great opportunity for more fun stories and for us to really develop their employees as characters."

With more than 34,000 employees - including 7,200 flight attendants - experts point out that Southwest's edge over other airlines comes, not from its antics, but from its low fares and frequent service. To maintain that advantage the airline must sustain its high productivity, according to Mr David Swierenga, president of AeroEcon, an aviation consulting firm. Southwest employees' pay is about average with the rest of the industry, Mr Swierenga said. But for the same money, Southwest workers are typically more productive than those at other airlines, he added.

"If you're a 737 pilot at Southwest, you make as much money as a 737 pilot at US Airways, maybe more, but you will fly more in order to earn that pay."

But Southwest's flight attendants argue otherwise.

Mr Thom McDaniel, president of the Transport Workers' Union Local 556, which represents all Southwest Airlines' flight attendants, said that his members earn 20-30 per cent less than the rest of the industry.

A starting flight attendant at Southwest makes about $14,000 a year, he said. The median salary for a Southwest flight attendant is $24,000, typically after about seven years on the job.

Flight attendants customarily get paid for time spent in the air - from the moment the cabin door closes to when it opens after landing, said Ms Dawn Deeks, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants.

"You don't get paid for your preflight briefings, you don't get paid for your layovers, you don't get paid for your time in between flights, you don't get paid when you report to the airport before work," Ms Deeks said.

Ms Hardage, however, said the work that flight attendants do on the ground is taken into consideration in the way pay is structured. She added that the company has always given its employees job security and the freedom to be themselves at work.

"Southwest has a philosophy of putting its employees first, and that is something that has been a mission since our very founding - that employees come first and if you treat employees well, they will in turn treat the customers well," she said.

The labour dispute hasn't hurt Southwest's operations, analysts said.

And, despite picketing in January at six US airports, workers interviewed said they love their jobs. But they also say that it's tough to keep up the playful culture their employer is known for with a labour dispute in the backdrop.

Mr Dan McGuire, a flight attendant at Southwest for nearly five years, said that on a recent three-day trip with stops in Nashville and Indianapolis, he worked eight unpaid hours.

He spends his time between flights taking care of children travelling alone and cleaning the airplane.

"We're the hardest-working flight attendants in the industry. We're the best airline in the world, and we're not getting paid," he said. "It's hard to keep working and keep up the culture if we don't feel valued. We feel like the stepchildren of the industry." - (Los Angeles Times/ Washington Post News Service)