Sara Nelson: Unionizing Delta ‘Months Away’ Then She’s Going After Regional Airline Pay

Sara Nelson, who heads the AFA-CWA union which represents over 55,000 flight attendants across various airlines, said that the effort to unionize cabin crew at Delta “maybe” could come “in a few months.” Speaking at the Skift Aviation Forum she made a number of interesting claims.

  • Boarding pay was first introduced two years ago at non-union Delta as a true add-on, additional money to flight attendants. Previously cabin crew were generally paid only for time operating the flight. This is something that unions bargained for, and preferred because it meant higher hourly pay rates, and because senior flight attendants work fewer, longer flights and therefore spend less time boarding. It redistributed money from junior crew to senior crew.

    Sara Nelson says that Delta’s move was a response to union pressure. But if that’s true, then it proves the point that flight attendants at Delta are better with unions as a stalking horse than actually having (and paying for) one.

  • Nelson says that boarding pay has expanded to other, new contracts since Delta’s move. And that’s partly true. Her union didn’t go for it at Spirit, saying it wasn’t actually that important.

    At American, a union base President explained that they got boarding pay instead of higher hourly pay. Some senior crew were very unhappy, then, with the choice to push for boarding pay.

  • But Nelson says that union contracts have ben done at “better terms” – which is misleading because they are not at better pay. American’s contract, for instance (which Nelson specifically cites) adopts Delta’s boarding pay system and their profit sharing structure. It doesn’t adopt Delta’s profit sharing amounts because American doesn’t make very much profit.

  • She complains about a ‘two-tiered wage system’ where regional airline flight attendants make ~ ‘45% less’ than counterparts at mainline.

    However, for the most part these are pay rates set by contracts that her union negotiated. And it’s precisely these contracts that let mainline carriers offload cost, and pay flight attendants higher wages at mainline. They’re effectively B-scales, and arguably appropriate for regional carriers operating planes with fewer passengers and without as much premium revenue as mainline whose revenue is augmented by long haul business class.

Ms. Nelson was dubbed the most powerful flight attendant in America by the New York Times. She could bark orders at Congressman Pete DeFazio when he chaired the House Transportation Committee. And she was probably most responsible for airline subsidies during the pandemic.

However, her influence may be waning after losing a fight to reform rules at her own union, losing out to run the AFL-CIO, and losing the most recent Presidential election – and not just because there will be a Republican majority on the National Mediation Board, but because Democrats were all-in on unions and unions didn’t deliver victory especially in swing Rust Belt states.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Ha! She already wrote to membership last week that it’s going to be hard to get contracts done at UA and AS now, with the new administration. Maybe she should focus on that instead of trying to unionize a whole other workgroup.

  2. I’m not a fan of hers. She spends too much time showboating and not enough on actual work. She also has an enormous ego and evidently doesn’t care in the least about passengers which is kinda sub optimal for a flight attendant.

  3. Gary-

    You have stated the obvious in your story: “The flight attendants at Delta are better with unions as a stalking horse than actually having (and paying for) one.”

    The threat of organizing a union is a far more powerful tool for the flight attendants than any airline union has proven to be!

    Delta FAs have been saying this for decades- and it shows. Industry leaders in performance, profitability, workplace equity, compensation and quality of life. And imagine saving dues on top of it all, over a 40-50 year career.

    The Delta Difference

  4. Unions in this sector (thinking UA, AA) made decent progress in the past year, but things are not looking favorable for labor movements with the next administration. Good luck to Delta crews, but I wouldn’t count on this.

  5. pity the poor FAs at AS and UA that actually thought AFA could deliver.

    DL FAs can see it all and will steer clear of Sara who lives in a fantasy land of her own self importance

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