Tip policy per airline

[Gilles Hudicourt]

The airline I've been working at for the past 20 years had a policy of paying for tips to the drivers of vehicles that shuttled its crews between hotels and airports during layovers. These tips were paid by the crew and could be claimed as expense, at roughly one dollar per crewmember.
This is sometimes a hotel shuttle driver, sometimes a chartered bus that comes to ferry the whole crew between the hotel and airport, and sometimes its a ground transport between two cities, like Amsterdam to Brussels for example.

I often see crewmembers of other airlines individually tip the hotel shuttle bus drivers.

What is the tip policy and practice at other airlines ?

Do the crews tip, and if they do, is it out of their own pocket or do the airlines cover these tips ?

Thanks. And if you can't provide the name of your airline, please provide at least a geographical region.

[MarkerInbound]

Most US airlines pay crewmembers per diem for the time away from base. How the crew member spends that money is up to them.

[777AV8R]

Sounds like you're on the negotiating committee. Yup, most of us were provided a per diem. How we spent the money was up to us and as a courtesy, most of us would tip our drivers. If $2.00/round trip is a lot, either the pay is too low or someone may be living above their means. You could also elect to not tip....

[Gilles Hudicourt]

:rolleyes:

Our company used to have the captain pay the tip for the whole crew, $1 per person, and would then reimburse the captain after an expense account. So for example with a crew of 10, that would come out to $20 for each layover night.

So for the past decades, our cabin crew and the F/O were in the habit of not paying tips to the drivers, since the company took care of it.

Now they decided to stop paying for the tips because they say that other airlines do not pay for tips but these come our of the crew's pockets, or from their per diems, which is the same.

In light of all this, I would like to know how its done in other airlines. Is it true that our company was unique in providing tips for the drivers for the last decades ?

On my next flight, I will pull out my dollar bill and hand it to my driver like I often see US crews do with the shuttle driver. I am not certain what the rest of the crew will do. Which is why I am doing this informal survey......

[Left Coaster]

Good Luck Gilles. it seems you might now be on your own. The tipping of drivers and such being paid back by claiming it from the company died long ago. At least at many other airlines. My last Canadian airline poo poo'd it pretty quickly when it was brought up when discussing pay and per diem numbers for pilots and cabin crew as a bad habit for a company to get into. "Besides...we pay you per diem on layovers, what you do is up to you." Where I've worked since (way off shore and for 4 different contracts) the tip is your discretion.
(ask for a bigger uniform allowance or shoes or glasses if you are in negotiations, just not tips... :)

[+TSRA]

Tips have not been discussed formally at my outfit, but the idea is brought up between crews on a not too infrequent basis.

The consensus is that the vast majority of the crew members would like to tip. However, that same vast majority is under 35 years of age, and many no longer carry minted or printed currency. I too have found that as time goes on, I am using plastic more often and thus have less money for tipping on me.

One item of food for thought would be if the world moves forward with any of the cryptocurrencies; tipping could move back into the fold as one would be able to "bump" the tip over to the driver. Of course, these currencies would have to stabilise first, as I can't imagine anyone would freely give away any part of a Bitcoin right now.

[jack11111]

I'm not sure the cashless society is the problem. If you knew a favorite vendor, e.g. hot dog, pretzel, ice cream, etc. would be at a certain location, cash only, you would have the needed cash.

I think it's a matter of will.