The United Airlines flight attendants union voted to fire its contract negotiating team, as reported by aviation watchdog JonNYC.

Negotiations have dragged on for years – the contract became amendable in 2021. The team had only just unveiled its monetary demands. And they ran out the clock on a favorable Democrat-majority National Mediation Board, so their bargaining position weakens. But the decision to slow walk was a national union decision, so this appears at least in part to be blame-shifting.

Hot off the press: UAL AFA message pic.twitter.com/i9Z01BjZyw

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) November 21, 2024

The national union’s strategy was to have American Airlines flight attendants do a contract first. That would set a bar that United cabin crew could negotiate up from. Even though American’s flight attendants are represented by their own independent union, the AFA-CWA let them their top negotiator Joe Burns. Then, if American flight attendants wound up going on strike, it was another union’s members feeling the pain to set that higher compensation bar. Joe Burns now moves over to do the United negotiations as part of these changes.

Contact negotiations have been adjourned until the New Year. The union says they’re mad at the Biden Administration’s National Mediation Board over this, but the union screwed up by slow-walking the negotiations. They didn’t factor the possibility of a President Trump. Now, they worry that when Republicans take over a majority on the Mediation Board, flight attendants won’t be permitted to strike (the board first has to declare an impasse, before releasing the parties into a ’30 day cooling off period’ that then permits ‘self-help’ until the President acts).

The union only just unveiled its compensation demands last month so claims the union has made about how the company is delaying are disingenuous.

Here’s what they asked for:

• They are asking for 3% – 4% more than what American Airlines flight attendants just won.

• The bigger percentage increases are for more senior crew, who already earn more.

• And they are asking for bigger future raises, too. American flight attendants get future-year raises of 2.75%; 3%; 3%; and 3.5%. United flight attendants are asking for 4%.

• And they want these raises year after year. Traditionally there’s a fixed end date to the contract, and wages are frozen until there’s a new contract. That’s why American flight attendants had gotten their last raise in January 2019. Many American flight attendants now worry that their next deal will take four years to negotiate, during which they’ll be without raises.

And now that they’ve dismissed their own negotiations team, citing a need for change in strategy, they’re admitting in effect that blame lies with their team not the company for the slow rate of progress.

Ultimately we can expect that United’s deal will look similar to American’s but perhaps a little bit better, and profit sharing will be the biggest difference because even if they end up with the same formula United is more profitable. That was probably true regardless of the outcome of the election, but now the AFA no doubt worries that a strike is no longer in their toolkit.

But profit-sharing is the real difference-maker broadly. Delta Air Lines is the most profitable U.S. carrier, and their profit-sharing payments will make their cabin crew the highest paid. Delta flight attendants are non-union, so their pay is re-evaluated annually. They get raises each year. If United flight attendants see out-year increases like American’s, they are likely to be quickly surpassed by Delta wages.