A new flight attendant lawsuit against United Airlines challenges the historical practice of flight attendants being paid more for flight hours, but not being separately paid for time spent reporting to work an hour before the flight, boarding and deplaning, and for sit time between flights.

The Newark-based flight attendant worked for two years as a United flight attendant, from July 2023 to July 2025, and is suing under New Jersey state law.

The September 15 filing seeks class action status, alleging United violates New Jersey wage law by paying cabin crew only for “actual” flight time (block‑out to door‑open) and not paying for mandatory on‑the‑ground work: report time, pre‑flight checks, boarding, deplaning, and in‑uniform “sit” time between segments. The suit seeks unpaid wages and overtime, up to 200% liquidated damages, legal fees, and injunctive relief.

This is very much outside of my area of expertise, but I’ve gone down the rabbit hole. I’d love to hear from readers who are subject matter experts, because I was surprised to find that the claim seemed plausible.

United’s Pay Has Been Standard For Nearly 80 Years – But They Just Agreed To Boarding Pay

U.S. airlines have paid flight crews primarily for block time for decades, with contractual “rigs” that credit some non‑flying time (e.g., duty‑rigs, trip‑rigs) at a flight‑time equivalent. United’s first flight attendant contract in 1946 set duty hour limits, rest periods, grievance procedure and 85 flight hours per month caps.

Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys from the 1970s describe crediting formulas for non‑flying duty and deadhead, which is why base flight‑hour rates are higher than a typical hourly wage.

Unions negotiated this formula because it benefits senior crew at the expense of junior crew. The airline is most concerned with average pay, and this way senior crew who tend to work fewer, longer flights earn more while junior flight attendants working more short flights earn less. Union bargaining is both about extracting as much as possible for the employee group as a whole, and also about how the contract economics are split amongst members.

United’s current flight attendant contract has a minimum monthly pay floor (e.g., 71‑hour protection for lineholders, reserve gets more), which “priced in” unpaid ground time through higher block rates and rigs.

When non-union Delta began paying boarding time at half hourly rates in 2022, the union contract equilibrium became unsustainable. Unions had asked for boarding pay in the past, but only as a free add-on for everyone and didn’t make this a true sticking point in negotiations. But flight attendants, seeing what was available at Delta, weren’t going to settle for union-bargained contracts giving them what they saw as ‘less’.

American Airlines added boarding pay to its collective bargaining agreement effective April 1, 2025. That was the first unionized flight attendant group to secure it in a contract. Alaska followed. United and the AFA-CWA agreed to boarding pay as part of a 2025 tentative agreement that members rejected in July. (The union had told members they would fight for full ‘ground pay’ but did not press for this in the final deal.)

New Jersey Law Conflicts With Flight Attendant Union Contracts

New Jersey’s regulations say “all the time the employee is required to be at his or her place of work or on duty shall be counted as hours worked.” Overtime is due over 40 hours per week. For alrine employees, New Jersey permits “rescheduled time off” in lieu of overtime pay under specific conditions (but, among other things, the employer must have requested this).

United probably has a good case that they’re paying for all hours, even though they aren’t calculating pay based on all hours. But they also probably run into problems with overtime. While most flight attendants aren’t actually working over 40 hours per week when adding report time, sit time, boarding etc. there will be some who do some of the time (depending on how trips are scheduled) and many on reserve will as well. This becomes a problem under New Jersey law for Newark-based cabin crew.

Here, the plaintiff only needs to show (a) they were required to be on duty/on‑premises and (b) weren’t paid for that time. NJ’s “hours worked” rule is blunt, and New Jersey has a six‑year look‑back and up to 200% liquidated damages for post‑Aug. 6, 2019 conduct under their Wage Theft Act.

If aclass is certified for EWR‑based FAs (current/former who performed NJ work), damages could include:

• Unpaid straight‑time for all counted but uncompensated New Jersey “hours worked” (report, boarding, deplaning, ground duties, sits).

• Overtime for any workweeks where counted hours exceed 40.

• Up to 200% liquidated damages, legal fees, and interest

United Seems To Face An Uphill Battle Defending The Suit

United will argue the claims are precluded or must go to Railway Labor Act arbitration because they require interpreting the Collective Bargaining Agreement (reporting rules, rigs, credits, line value, etc.).

The Supreme Court’s Hawaiian Airlines v. Norris seems to draw a critical line here: state‑law wage claims based on independent rights (like “hours worked”) are not preempted merely because a union contract exists. Only claims that require interpreting the contract are channeled to arbitration. The plaintiff claim here is simple, ‘we were on duty’ and there’s no contractual ambiguity.

Meanwhile, airlines have mostly lost attempts to use Airline Deregulation Act preemption against wage laws that don’t regulate the airline‑customer relationship. The Ninth Circuit upheld Washington’s paid sick leave law against ADA preemption and let California wage laws apply to flight crews. While those aren’t binding in the Third Circuit, they a trend towards general state wage laws surviving pre-emption challenges. (And the third circuit seems likely to follow the ninth.)

New Jersey has a statutory good‑faith defense. Clearly United has been acting in good faith, paying exactly what has been bargained for and agreed to by its union. But the state does not consider industry custom to constitute good faith.

United’s best chance here seems to be forcing an interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement, channeling this through the Railway Labor Act and out of the hands of New Jersey – or defeating class status given varying flight attendant experience with where and when their duty time occurred and how they may or may not have crossed 40 hour work weeks as a result.

This Is A Much Bigger Issue Than United’s Newark Base

California is fertile grant for these sorts of suits, having already seen successful claims over wage statements and meal and rest time, and these challenges have survived pre-emption. Mirroring this suit for flight attendant bases in the state seems likely to follow.

Washington State saw its sick leave law applied to flight crew, and appears to have similar hours worked rules to New Jersey. There are multiple outstanding suits in Colorado over unpaid ground and boarding time as well. New York has these rules as well. Illinois seems like a risk as well.

Why Haven’t We Seen Suits Like This Before?

The last six years have produced plaintiff‑friendly holdings in aviation wage cases in California and Washington that survived 9th Circuit appeals. So that makes future cases more triable, I suppose.

And New Jersey’s 2019 Wage Theft Act expanded remedies and the look‑back period to six years. That makes this case more lucrative.

Plus, it’s no longer universally accepted that flight attendants are only paid for flight time. In some sense, Delta’s decision to unilaterally add boarding pay in 2022 may have helped open the door. Airlines can no longer say ‘everybody does it’ (even if that isn’t technically a defense under New Jersey law). Boarding pay strengthens the plaintiff’s narrative that boarding and ground duties are compensable work.

A Federal Fix Is Needed

As a policy matter, this is stupid. Airlines are national networks. Most flights cross state lines. almost all cabin crew work under union contracts designed to pay more for block time precisely because they don’t clock in and out in the usual way. And flight attendants at these airlines don’t risk being paid less than minimum wage.

Pay is clearly negotiated for the benefit of flight attendants, with eyes open by their elected representatives. And the higher hourly rates that these contracts pay for flight time shouldn’t then increase the airline’s liability for overtime (in those states where it’s calculated at 1.5x actual wages). Congress could clarify that state wage‑and‑hour rules are preempted to avoid a patchwork of state rules.