United Airlines flight attendants haven’t seen a raise in four years. Their contract became amendable during the pandemic, which wasn’t a great time to start negotiations, so things have taken a long time.
The parties are in federal mediation, and mediators have adjourned negotiations for the year. Flight attendants only just revealed their wage demands. They had been slow-walking their bargaining, waiting for American Airlines flight attendants to get a new contract first. The union even lent their top negotiator to the rival union at American, figuring that the deal struck there would be a baseline for their own contract (and if anyone had to strike to get it, better the members of a different union).
To keep crewmembers fired up, the union sent out a communication to members listing all of the items that United has sought to change in their favor in the new contract. For instance,
- the airline wants to cover health care costs for flight attendants who are active and fly.
- And they want to use a computer to construct schedules based on flight attendant preferences and seniority, rather than pre-constructing ‘trips’ that flight attendants bid on.
This is what United management is proposing and why we don’t have a new contract and are far away from getting a new one!
byu/Sea_Force3434 inflightattendants
Some of the changes detailed are strong preferences for the airline, others are starting points in negotiation to trade away in exchange for higher pay. Some of ‘reasonable’ and others won’t seem to be. The trick here is that in order to get comparable pay, there needs to be comparable work rules. And how much of where things are in negotiations is the union’s fault is unclear – the union voted to fire its contract negotiating team
One thing seems clear from the union’s list of bargaining line-item complaints is that United wants more control over flight scheduling, and there are some unusually generous provisions in the current flight attendant deal that the airline thinks should be more like industry standard if flight attendants are going to get similar pay or even higher pay than cabin crew at other airlines.
These are being portrayed as ‘concessions’ but the union is asking for very significant concessions like wage bumps of about 30% and more in future years. 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.
One area that’s particularly piquing for flight attendants in United’s as is a move to adopt a ‘PBS’ or a preferential bidding system for schedules. That’s a crew scheduling system used in the airline industry to assign work schedules to pilots and flight attendants. It uses a computer algorithm to create schedules based on individual preferences, seniority, and operational needs. You see it in use at carriers such as American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and JetBlue Airways. For instance, Delta’s unionized pilots use it. Here’s the version some crew don’t like:
- Crew members submit their preferences for days off, trip types, destinations, layovers, and other criteria.
- The system processes bids in order of seniority, meaning more senior crew members have a better chance of getting their preferred schedules.
- The system has to ensure that schedules meet legal requirements, such as rest periods, and that flights are adequately staffed.
Flight attendants complain that preferences aren’t genuinely considered, especially for less senior flight attendants, compared to manual bidding systems where schedulers directly assigned trips. The algorithms and logic behind PBS are often not transparent, leading to frustration when preferences aren’t met. PBS also doesn’t accommodate nuanced preferences well, like avoiding certain pairings or long layovers in specific cities.
Today, United uses a traditional line bidding systems, where pre-constructed schedules are bid on by crew members in order of seniority
Ultimately, United flight attendants are demanding higher pay than at any other airline. At the end of the day they’re going to get a contract that’s competitive with American Airlines, perhaps 1%-2% more. But in order to offer more compensation than cabin crew at American, United needs its flight attendants to be at least as productive as those at American.
And the AFA-CWA union sees themselves as having less leverage now with Trump’s election. The incoming President will ultimately get a majority on the National Mediation Board, which has to vote to allow an airline union to strike (declare an ‘impasse’ starting the clock on a ’30-day cooling off period’ prior to parties engaging in ‘self-help’). They believe a Trump-majority NMB would be less likely to allow a strike, and that United will know this, although even the Biden-majority Mediation Board never signed off on an airline strike.
Read the room.
Bookings at the historic New York Hilton Midtown are filling up fast!
People can only take so much bullshit.
I think that UA and the other airlines should go on strike. The reduction of health insurance should be the major reason to strike. If you’re an employee you should have insurance.
The increase in wages is important and needs to combined in their negotiations.
The UA FAs deserve so much more than AA FAs. This year, I’ve had nothing but proactive and good service from UA FAs. Whereas, AA FAs hide in the galley’s on their cellphone almost the entire flight (plus, they are generally obscenely rude).
Glad to hear that UA will get a similar if not better deal than AA. AA service is by far the worst amongst legacy US airlines.
What about retro pay for the past 3 years? Both American and Southwest Flight Attendants received back pay after negotiations dragged on for years.
When was the last time you were on a United flight? For me, it was two nights ago. These lazy flight attendants are already overpaid for what they do. They actually deserve a pay and benefits reduction. United needs to implement a “Pay for performance” type of package.
They don’t like it, then they can resign so they aren’t forced to work at such a horrible job.
But, but.. uNiOnS aRe BaD…
Where are the bootlickers? C’mon scabs, tell us how your oligarchs will make everything ‘great’ again by getting rid of the immigrants or whatever out-group you decide to vilify instead of actually improving anything for anyone.
Seriously, what happened to treating others as you want to be treated? Corporate greed is out of control right now. Profits over people, whether it’s the crew or the customers. Hope those stock buybacks were worth it. Loyalty is dead.
You have to admire the b*lls on the Union sending out anything to their United AFA membership at this point with a straight face.
“We’ve been really busy negotiating American’s APFA contract. That’s why you don’t have a new contract yet. But here’s something to get mad about since we didn’t do anything on your behalf for years and gave away your chief AFA negotiator to APFA before you. DOWN WITH EVIL MANAGEMENT”
@1990 – these are corporations accountable to shareholders who expect profits. Sorry you don’t understand our great capitalist system. Move somewhere else if you don’t like it – not changing. BTW if you want to get ahead work hard and become an executive of a public company or invest in their stock. I’ve done both and am set for life. Sad others are basically begging for handouts and see a union (which frankly isn’t needed in 2024 and hopefully Trump severely cuts union protections) as their only option instead of taking accountability for their own life
Another United CEO that doesn’t want to pay out.
Funding hordes of indigent people is hardly a comparison.
As a current 17 year UA flight attendant, most of those “concessions” don’t seem like concessions to me. At Continental, we had to work 40 hours per month to maintain health benefits… I’m so GLAD that UA wants to bring this back! No one should have health benefits if they are sitting at home, while the rest of us work! Re: PBS…. unfortunately it’s just a matter of time. I love traditional line bidding, but I’m educated enough to know that it’s not efficient, and wastes company money and resources. The traditional line construction days are over. As for reducing layovers… there’s only so much more they can reduce them, so it won’t even be noticeable. Most international flights operate once per day, so these layovers will be unchanged. And yes, if you’re on reserve, you need to be in 50 miles of base; sorry about it. That’s how reserve works; you can’t commute on reserve! I’ll take any and all of these apparent “concessions” in turn for a hefty retro pay check. My yes vote is 100% tied to retro pay.
@Joanie Adams
You forgot to call the working class ‘lazy’ and ‘entitled’ — Isn’t punching-down fun?
United said it “built the world’s biggest airline” for us (October 2024). Now you’ll tell me that marketing is a lie, too!
Look on the bright side, United is letting us convert those worthless PlusPoints into PQP, TravelBank, or miles, starting next year. Having hundreds of those bad-boys expire over the years felt awful.
United wants to delete “night pay”….. are you aware that it’s literally $0.20 per hour? It’s 100% unimportant… United can have their night pay lol. Is it just me or do these concessions actually seem pretty fair?
PBS can be used to bid for pre constructed trips while also considering days off preferences, layovers, etcs. That’s what some other airlines do. Very senior bidders tend to pick specific trips and junior ones bid for specific days off if they can get them.
@AC
I missed you. I needed my bootlicking counterpart. The ‘law’ here is unjust. If our elected officials are not going to improve things, then I say, let it burn. Strike (I know it’s unlikely). And since you brought it up, I’ll move anywhere I want. And I’ll fly first, if it’s lie-flat. Live a little. You can too, unless, you know, there’s some limit on your freedom that I’m not aware of. We do still have that free market, don’t we. Also, anyone can self-claim to be a ‘CEO’ (of a small business). Unless you have TENS of millions of dollars, you are a peasant like the rest of us. Besides, if that was you, wouldn’t you fly private anyway. The days of ‘hard work’ and the meritocracy are over. Be born rich or become a sycophant. Or, how about, actually fight for progress. The irony, if you lived through the last 70 years, it was unions that built the middle class, not the rich. Now folks like yourself are siding with those that killed our economy. Hope they paid you well.
What if I only have SIX of millions of dollars? Am I a peasant, or someone who built a business and employs hundreds at great wages?
It is good to see that JA, a UA FA, sees the two biggest asks from the company to be reasonable – as most people would. It isn’t too much to ask people to actually work in order to get benefits; I presume that there are people that trade their trips down to zero and that is why they end up with no time but still get benefits. care to clarify, JA?
As for PBS, it is common and creates efficiencies. If you really need to be in the same city every night for a layover, then you have different motives that inhibit the company from using you where they need -and should cost you.
I am glad that this list got published. I am not sure of the details about cutting layover time but PBS and minimum hours for benefits is very reasonable.
And let’s not forget that the longer the union drags this out, the more UA FAs lose because they will never get back all that they could have had if they settled earlier – and which DLs non-union FAs got years ago and without paying union dues.
@JA let me say first and foremost that you’re a sellout. You being okay with a 10 hour layover and it being further reduced and international layovers being further reduced speaks on this. You think they won’t reduce international layovers if given the opportunity? Them trying to reduce the call out from 3 hours to 2 would really fck over your coworkers but I’m sure you don’t care about them.
You mainly just looking for a retro check and nothing else you back stabber. I certainly hope you’re not Newark based. United Flight attendants are already fatigued and worn out you would be perfectly fine selling yourself out like the coward you are.
It’s very clear many on here hate flight attendants that’s why many of you would want us to have terrible healthcare and to be fatigued. We are exposed to all kinds of germs, abusive passengers, on the job injuries and radiation so compromising health care coverage is not happening.
Southwest has zero minimums and has free healthcare insurance and United brings in way more revenue so I don’t want to hear it!!!! They can afford it!
Stop excusing corporate greed and abuse of employees because you have zero compassion for humans. If you think healthcare plans like PPO should be cut that speaks on who you are as a person.
Furthermore, surveys were sent to flight attendants asking them if they were in favor of PBS and the majority said no so that is why there will continue to be pushback.
I wanted to thank the customers who truly do care about us and want to see us treated well and not treated like robots
@Bob “The reduction of health insurance should be the major reason to strike. If you’re an employee you should have insurance.” Did you not catch that the people UA doesn’t want to fund health insurance for are those not flying? And, often negotiations are concerned with how the cost of insurance is split between employee and employer. The dollars are fungible. If the employers pays $X less in premiums, that’s $X more they can give in wage increases. The more highly paid employees don’t want the burden transferred to the employer. Thus, more senior FAs who understand the economics/accounting are OK with employees paying a higher share of health care.
@Tim Dunn, yes, that’s correct. Currently, UA FAs can clear their trips down to zero and still keep their benefits. It’s a legacy UA provision that was included in the contract when we merged. At CO, there was always a monthly minimum. Some FAs trade their trips down to zero month after month, and United still has to pay for their benefits. We need the 40 hour minimum back for fairness, and also to promote retirements and to keep the company growing in the right direction.
It has amazed me how many flight attendants get full benefits without ever actually flying.
Why would the company and the flight attendants who work want to dilute the benefits among the flight attendants who don’t work?
PBS is used by flight attendants at other airlines and by the pilots at UA. Why is that a big deal?
UA has had contracts with all other groups for years.
All other large flight attendant groups have contracts with their airlines.
The flight attendant union fired their negotiating team.
All signs point to where the obstacle has been in getting a contract done, and it isn’t the company.
Another United flight attendant here. Sorry to say, but AFA really had to stretch to make that list of 20 concessions. Half of them are insurance related and could have been grouped together as one. I personally don’t mind if my health insurance goes up a bit. We have AMAZING health insurance at United, and they’re not going to take that away from us. If I have to pay a little more for it, I’ll still come out ahead in the long run.
As for reserves, they should have to live in base. When I was hired, they told us that reserves must live in base, period. United has said they are willing to do 12 hour reserve call-out windows instead of the unfavorable straight 24 hours on-call that we have currently. In return, they want to decrease the call out to two hours instead of three so that they will still be able to keep the same staffing numbers. That seems pretty fair. When I was on reserve in IAH for 7 years with Continental, we had 2 hour call outs and had to live in base. This isn’t a concession, it’s how to run an airline.
Lastly, all the commotion about duty day and layover length, this is still subject to regulations by the FAA. We’ll still get 8 hours at the hotel, because the layover can’t be less than 10 hours, and our short layover hotels are almost always right at the airport. It might look like a concession on paper, but you’ll never experience it due to FAA regulations.
Give me Delta’s pay and American’s retro and I’ll probably sign tomorrow.
Did Gary write this at the airport bar at 6 AM? More sentences had grammar errors than not.
The average UA flight attendant’s salary is around $67,000. UA’s CEO Scott Kirby’s pay nearly doubled in 2023, reaching $18.6 million (salary, stock options, non equity incentives). Kirby’s compensation is a staggering 268 times flight attendant’s average compensation. And the company wants to cut healthcare coverage for flight attendants. Really!!!
Cracks me up that all the whiners are “they should work off they’re getting benefits”. Well, that’s the contract. The FAs have EVERY RIGHT to enforce that provision as written.
Believe me, the company will ALWAYS use the contract against you.
And for all you non-crew commenters complaining about FAs “not working”, for all of history they’ve worked without being paid. See: Boarding.
Also, PBS rocks once you learn how to use it.
33 year FA here
@Ryan
THANK YOU
To the other flight crew who’ve responded, remember we all age.
You don’t know why someone has traded down to zero.
They may be having a healthcare crisis or dealing with a family member. They will receive a bill from the company to cover their premiums as well as a bill from the union to cover dues. NOT FREE
Regarding call out, I am not on reserve however I live in NYC no more than 20 miles from EWR.
Trust and believe it has taken me more than 2 hours to get there. Give humanity a bit of leeway.
Regarding layovers, especially domestic if i wash my underwear and they don’t have enough time to dry the layover is too damn short.
Regarding 20 cent night pay if you don’t want your’s I’ll take it. Tne company wouldn’t look to rescind it if it wasn’t valuable.
I won’t negotiate my contract on the internet. I’ll let my union represent and negotiate for me
Shawn and BXFlyGurl, the pie is only so big. However many pieces there are to go around, if you want to give full benefits to flight attendants who haven’t worked a flight in YEARS, then there will be less for everyone else.
It can’t be both ways. No other department or employee group has employees who trade trips down to zero for years and still get full benefits.
If there is a medical emergency (though really most of these flight attendants want to start retirements while keeping medical), then there are long term disability programs to help.
The main question is why is the union fighting so hard for flight attendants who haven’t worked in years.
And as far as not getting paid during boarding, the hourly wage has been increased to compensate for that. Look at the annual earnings for similar groups with lower hourly wages and you’ll see the work is paid for, just in a different way.
The working flight attendants 100% deserve a new contract and raises, but things like this battle to preserve full benefits for non-working flight attendants is part of the reason this has dragged on for so long and the flight attendant negotiating team is being replaced.
Mark,
the answer is simply that unions exist to keep union dues flowing… They don’t care how much FAs benefit and who gets stepped on in the process of keeping those union dues flowing.
And THAT is why not only has the AFA and every other union failed to unionize DL FAs but why unionization in the private sector throughout the US is in low single digit percentages.
EWR based here of 26 years. Most of the company’s concessions are reasonable. It’s all about efficiency. Half the sub-UA flight attendants I know still make references to their 8 hour domestic duty days of the past, when they weren’t even legal to do a transcon turn from EWR to SFO and back. The company will never add inefficiencies into the contract if we are demanding a pay raise.
The Union’s concession list doesn’t come with explanations, so it’s not as bad as they want it to seem. For example, the reduced 2 hour call out period, well, the Company is going to eliminate some co-terminals like BWI for the Washington base, so it will no longer be necessary for reserves to drive 90 miles to another airport. They also want to bring back reserve call out periods from CO instead of 24/7 reserve. This is actually a win for reserves. The two hour call out is what’s going to make it possible.
Similarly, if certain medical plans are eliminated, new ones are likely to be added. We will always have solid health benefit choices. Plans change, but we will still have great benefits with a reasonable copay. It just might be a new plan and not a traditional PPO.
And no other industry allows people to stay employed if they clear their schedule. The minimum hour rule is not a concession, it’s a win. If you work in any other industry…. you, your kids, your parents, your dog, etc. can get sick too, and you might have to take time off to sort it out. But by allowing people to stay employed when they don’t contribute to the workforce, it weighs down everyone else and keeps pay rates lower for those who work. Everyone should pay to have short and long term disability insurance… for life’s unexpected surprises. And then once you turn 70, you need to be seriously thinking about retiring.
@BXFlyGurl, a lot of us want to be home more and don’t mind a 10 hour layover. You shouldn’t need to wash your underwear on a layover; that’s just poor planning.
@CEO of small business
LOL. $6 million is not enough, sir. Not in 2024. You are more a peasant than an oligarch every day of the year. Hopefully, you treat your employees well, are generous, supportive, actually a servant leader to them, and a decent partner, fair dealer, etc.
Believe it or not, I’m a millionaire, too. But without tens or hundreds of millions, you can lose it all, quickly. I’ve said before, our current system is not rewarding ‘hard work’ anymore. I applaud the unions and crew fighting for better terms. Shareholders (and capital at large) are already getting plenty of decent returns. Time to actually reward the people who do the work.
The greatest irony and hypocrisy is that a lot of the greedy bastards espousing anti-worker sentiments happen to pretend to be followers of the guy who advised them to be good to the poor. You know, the historic figure that we base our literal ‘year’ off of. Maybe you’ve heard of him, and the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. Or the late-stage capitalism version: if you believe, then you’re ‘saved’ so commit whatever atrocities you want because there is no afterlife. The latter doesn’t work for me.
@1990
Why would you work at job that makes you “poor” are you stupid? lazy? or something else? Anybody have a gun to your head?
Do you know why I don’t work at McDonald’s?……because it won’t pay me the kind of money to support the lifestyle that I choose to have.
@CHRIS
Oh yes, finally, a feast! Call me lazy, entitled, arrogant, fat, stupid, whatever you want. Once the ad hominems come out, I’ve won.
As a capitalist, and believe me, I am, though you might also call me a progressive, too, I do not ‘need’ to ‘work’ any job. I have had ‘jobs’ with fancy titles and W-2s and expense accounts in the past, and I might again in the future, if I want to, but for now, I am content with my assets and investments, and would like to see better conditions for all of us, including the least fortunate among us.
Why must some seemingly ‘successful’ insist on punching down? Like, show me on the doll where the working class hurt you? These are irrational fears, man. Help the poor. JFC.
Tim D
I disagree with you about Delta’s 550 K redemptions, but I’m happy that your mother thinks you can be trusted with Internet access again.
I was speaking to some UA and Delta FAs today. I showed them this article and @Tim Dunn’s comments. They disagreed that the 40 hour minimum is one of the “biggest asks from the company” and generally thought most of what you said shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. They agree PBS is a big change, but said that no one has detailed how the change would be implemented. Like would their trade board still exist? They are scared that UA will get rid of it with PBS. They have not even been told what “preferences” they’d get to include in their bids and if they agree to it, it will just be up to the company who continues to break Labor laws so no surprise why they don’t trust it. The Delta FAs said there’s benefits and downsides to the PBS they use and could see why some people don’t want it. They expect that they will unionize because most of the Delta FAs are over being so badly treated by the company. So why Tim do you keep talking on here about stuff you have no clue on? If DL unionizes will you agree to stop commenting on here? That would further validate that you have no idea what you are talking about…
Some of these concession the AFA claimed United wants to implement are 100% false. The one that stood out to me was the reduced rest. The FAA under 14 CFR Part 121 section 335(a) states that starting January 10, 2023 flight attendants whose duty day is 14 hours or less must be given 10 hours consecutive rest in between duty periods which can not be reduced. For clarification the rest period can begin as soon as flight attendants are released it does not mean 10 hours behind the door. For comparison the previous requirement was 9 hours rest which could be reduced to 8 hours at the airlines discretion that provision was changed to 10 hours, so why is the AFA purposely misleading their membership when they know United can’t reduce the layover to 8 hours or less and that applies to a duty day of 14 hours or less? If you’re scheduled to be on duty over 14 hours your FAA required legal rest between duty periods is more than 10 hours.
@Andy
I know plenty of Delta flight attendants and the AFA isn’t anywhere close to achieving the 50% plus 1 to force a vote of unionization at Delta. In fact quite the opposite the AFA is in desperation mode at Delta as many of Delta’s FA are noticing the AFA’s failure to secure a contract with Alaska, they’ve slow walked negotiations between United and the AFA simply because they wanted to go last to use a record breaking contract with United as a spring board to get more Delta FA’s to sign cards. The AFA has seen a sharp decline in Delta FA’s signing cards this year as their contract negotiations continue to drag out and the AFA’s failure to achieve and ratify a contract at Alaska. Per federal law the signatures the AFA collected in previous years are only good for 12 months. Also the fact that the AFA loaned out negotiators to the APFA and they didn’t achieve any ground breaking contract earth shattering contract has also hurt the AFA. And now that the APFA will now raise AA’s flight attendant dues 48% in 2025 from what I’ve heard has a lot of Delta flight attendants asking is unionization really worth it resulting in less Delta FA’s signing cards. I’ve seen the literature the AFA sends Delta FA’s and they are promising Delta FA’s the world but their performance this year or lack of performance this year among airline they already represent has cost them a lot of goodwill at Delta. The AFA has lost a ton of ground among Delta FA’s and the longer United and Alaska go without a contract the chances of Delta FA’s unionizing diminishes.
PBS is a system Delta uses and Delta FA’s do have a trade board so why would United FA’s be concerned they wouldn’t be allowed to trade with PBS I’m not buying it. PBS when the user knows how to use it works not only for senior flight attendants but junior flight attendants as well. It’s my understanding from talking to flight attendants at Delta that PBS is a bit more complicated but for those who’ve educated themselves on how to use PBS they can get the trips they want and junior FA’s can score some great domestic trips but also can get the days off they want if they know to bid/use PBS correctly.
The consistent observation I have on union members who buy into things like having UA fund (a portion) of health-care premiums for those not working for extended periods is that unions won’t admit the pie us only so large. How do you want to slice it.
We are not talking about people who would qualify for short/lt disability, family leave, etc. at generous organizations.
@ Shawn. PBS, it “rocks” for the company and very senior crew members. I was very familiar with PBS from the very beginning of the company (1980’s). If PBS offered the same presentation to crews that they did to management, PBS would be run out of town. PBS is not a “quality of life” tool for employees, it’s a “productivity” tool for management that doesn’t recognize holidays, peak travel periods (commuting) and especially CIRCADIAN RHYTHM for humans. PBS gives very senior crew members a fresh slice from the center of the loaf while the other top 30% get more crust and the remaining 70% get end pieces and finally crumbs. For those no matter how “strong” your preference is it will NEVER be stronger than the company’s.
@ Shawn. BTW, as opposed to “traditional” crew member scheduling, the ability to trade in/out of trips in the PBS bucket was severely limited and had many restrictions. This was part of PBS sales pitch to management, otherwise the trash trips that were being assigned to line holders would be assigned to reserves . . . thus requiring more reserve coverage and negating $$$ savings. I’ll emphasize the point again, PBS has two presentations, one for management and one for crews.
The only way to obtain higher wages, benefits, etc. is to force the management to give it to you. They will not give it to you unless they have to, because it is a cost. As long as people will still show up and apply for Flight Attendant jobs and work at them for the present set of conditions, there is no incentive for United to change anything. FAs in this scenario are expendable and too easily replaced. It is not about respect or commitment or anything like that; it is about share price and capital. This is how Capitalism works. If you voted for any Republican since Reagan took office for Federal office and are unhappy with this situation, well, you voted for it. Why should I, as a C-Suite member, care about your concerns if they cost me share returns, when I can replace you easily and perhaps more cheaply? No reason whatsoever.