Pros
Flight benefits, especially to Alaska where not many other carriers fly, employee discounts at other companies, such as car rental, etc., camaraderie with teammates/colleagues, novelty, learn a lot about the aviation industry (nice to have that insider knowledge), dynamic workplace (something different every day), flexibility in shifts (sometimes) by trading with others, reverse commute during off-hours, conversation starter with family and friends, be taken care of when you fly in and out of your own home airport with your co-worker fellow agents, essential workers (mostly), company culture is...they try to make it modern and aware and inclusive with mixed results. Their Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are on the right track, professed company value of safety before all else, high value on service (to customer) and some relative flexibility in how to handle many situations as an agent
Cons
Low pay, grueling hours, split shifts (especially if working part-time) impossible to live off of, high premium and high deductible health insurance (especially for part-time), everything is seniority-based, including scheduling and vacation bidding. The professed culture of safety is not always adhered to, and neither is the culture of service in favor of on time performance and efficiency: working more flights, faster, at a lower standard of safety and service. High focus on profit for the company (so paying workers low wages) at the expense of retention. This means lots of turnover and the company seems to be fine constantly investing in hiring more people and training them to replace employees leaving than in paying existing employees enough and making their work conditions better so that they stay. Company culture in application often lacks the actual inclusivity and open-mindedness that they profess to value, coming off of as the too-proper business uncle who crashed the party that Virgin America was having for their employees and passengers. Training is not very thorough and support from supervisors is thin, and often non-existent. Though there is an emphasis on reporting for safety and customer service events, often the company will side with the customer and put the blame on the employee if something negative happens, even though the employee is usually subject to conflicting expectations, policies, and procedures. If you are broke (or exhausted) from working this job, you won't be able to use the flight benefits you have to make the job worth it, because you aren't paid a living wage that would allow you to leave your house on off-days, let alone travel domestically or internationally. It's also difficult to get days off sometimes, depending on your workgroup, location, and seniority. If no one wants to take your shift, you can't drop it and you are stuck working that shift, even if it isn't what you want. As an agent, you can only trade away 50% or fewer of your shifts for the month. It is additionally hard to get unpaid leave, except during the height of covid. You have to report any other job you have to the company. Therefore, with inflexible hours and having to report outside employment, they make it exceedingly hard to try to get ahead by working another job in your off time so that you don't rely on this low pay to survive. DEI is mostly talk and all the people at the top of the corporation are still white men except one is a white woman. There is still explicit and implicit microaggressions in the uniform code against POC and LGBTQIA+ people, and the uniform code itself is, once again: very conservative and limiting, dictating the number of piercings you can have in each ear (it's 2) and where in the ear they can be, what type of and how much jewelry you can wear, lots of details for the shoes, and bizarrely specific rules about which uniform piece can be worn with which other uniform pieces and which uniform pieces are not allowed to be worn alone- including in which locations and at what time. Supervisors or even coworkers will report these uniform violations and you can get written up and even fired for them. Additionally, there is an absolutely draconian attendance policy which considers sick calls "points" against you that can get you fired when you are still on Probation. You can get points for being late as well- often the same for 1 minute as for 30 min. This policy disincentives people from calling in sick until they have worked there for long enough to pass probation, and so they are coming into work sick or else getting fired. Even once past probation, the attendance policy is so specific and intense that it doesn't account for people being human.