Fanny Fuentes, LAX Passenger Service Worker

Fanny Fuentes, 36, has worked at the Los Angeles International Airport for 12 years.  Despite her many years of experience, Fanny still only makes $10 an hour, not nearly enough to help support her three children and $2200/month in rent.  Her husband has to work two jobs just to make ends meet.

Fanny works as a wheelchair attendant providing services for Southwest Airlines.  Her job is to make sure that passengers with disabilities and the elderly make it to their flights on time, safely and comfortably. 

“I’m proud of my job because I help people travel who otherwise couldn’t make it.  I have a regular passenger who always looks for me or asks for me when she comes to the airport.”

When Fanny starts her shift at 4:15 AM, there are often five or six passengers already waiting for assistance.  Being short-staffed, some passengers have to wait over an hour to be helped.

“I’ve worked in the airport a long time, and I’ve seen the level of service to passengers get worse and worse.  We often don’t have enough wheelchair attendants or dispatchers to cover flights.  This means that passengers with disabilities, or our elders are sitting around waiting.  It also means that flights are delayed for everyone else.”

Fanny has seen the training for the passenger service workers deteriorate in the years she’s worked at LAX. 

“We didn’t get training on how to help people with different disabilities.  For example, vision-impaired passengers who have guide dogs.  A lot of staff don’t know how to deal with them.  We are just trained to push a wheelchair, not deal with different disabilities that people have.”Fanny is standing up with his coworkers for quality services and passenger safety at LAX.

For more information call Mike Chavez at
(213) 284-7773 or (562) 644-0798 or visit www.seiu-usww.org