American Airlines flight attendants have voted to ratify their new contract. The union had a very aggressive campaign for ratification, and they won.
With 95% of eligible Flight Attendants voting, 87% of American Airlines Flight Attendants voted YES to ratify the 2024 agreement. #1u #solidarity pic.twitter.com/aMQmQpioLJ
— Association of Professional Flight Attendants (@APFAunity) September 12, 2024
The agreement provides 18% – 20% raises right away, full retro pay, plus boarding pay which the union says averages to an 8.5% raise. Taken together this outpaces what inflation has eroded from flight attendant wages over the last 5 years.
- This is great for the airline and for customers, because it takes a future flight attendant strike off the table for several years (this is a five year agreement, but we shouldn’t see a strike for at least seven years).
- This is great because flight attendants will see substantial raises – although the company had offered most of the raises back in June even while negotiations continued.
- And it’s great for flight attendants who won’t risk an economic downturn, or other uncertainty. The contract became amendable just before the pandemic, and one reason it took so long to reach an agreement is because the union would have been dumb to strike the best possible deal that might have been on the table in 2020.
The new contract, though, isn’t great for everyone, based on what the union prioritized in its negotiations.
- Junior flight attendants who need raises the most get the smallest raises. First through sixth year flight attendants get 18% raises. For a new hire that amounts to $5.47 per hour. A 13th year flight attendant gets a 20% raise, or an additional $13.99 per hour. The union’s narrative was about flight attendant struggle (Boston-based first and second-years qualified for food stamps) but it’s the struggling flight attendants who benefit least.
- The union negotiated that new hires will work straight reserve longer so that current employees get better schedules. This amounts to B-scale work rules.
- The contract limits the ability of flight attendants to transfer bases (work locations). Since the contract allows for out of base flight attendants to pick up trips, which the union sought, there’s less need for the airline to allow transfers to understaffed bases.
- Delta and United flight attendants will quickly earn more and this contract contains no snap up provision. Often contracts will say that when an airline with an upcoming negotiation like United gets a new contract, this one will beat it by 1%. Non-union Delta generally gives employees raises annually.
Meanwhile, there’s no provision for increases in out years (such as inflation increases) once the contract becomes amendable, so the longer a new contract takes the more money the company might save. Future year increases are locked in at 2.75%; 3%; 3%; and 3.5% – no matter how much flight attendants at United or Delta get, and no matter inflation looks like.
Indeed, Delta flight attendants are already likely going to make more because while American Airlines flight attendants got Delta’s profit-sharing formula, Delta earns a lot more profit to share.
- Boarding pay trades off with wages. Junior crew tend to work more short flights and spend more time boarding, so having wages rolled into flight time redistributes pay from junior flight attendants to more senior ones.
Once Delta gave their flight attendants boarding pay as an add-on, that created pressure on unions to demand it in negotiations, but this simply reduces the raises they got. Senior crew would have preferred higher wages instead of boarding pay.
- The union didn’t negotiation a return to pre-pandemic staffing levels for widebody aircraft. American continues reduced staffing on long haul aircraft, despite bringing back service levels.
There’s plenty of decisions that the union made in negotiations for flight attendants to be unhappy enough – and they’re going to have to live with these decisions not just for the five year length of the contract but probably the years after that it takes to negotiate the next deal as well.
But those downsides weren’t enough for flight attendants to take the risk that they’d be able to do better later, versus the company not being in a position to give them even as much.
Southwest flight attendants rejected a contract that their union negotiated, and they got a better deal. Alaska Airlines flight attendants rejected their contract, too. I wrote that I expected American Airlines flight attendants to ratify theirs. They did, and despite the tradeoffs that was likely the smartest move.
AA hasn’t provided an update of how much the new contract will cost it but it will likely involve $500 million or more in retro and hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs – even as AA struggles to generate the revenue that DL and UA get.
Note also that retro will increase taxes for FAs over what they would have paid if they had received the extra salary in the year it was earned; in addition, FAs lost the ability to use that money during a period when interest rates were at some of their highest levels.
are you drunk, Tim?
you can just be happy for them and their new contract. Unions work a certain way. Delta FAs found that out about no union representation in 2020 when they took a 1/3 pay cut that Delta forced.
When things get bad. Delta FAs have no ability to keep their profit sharing program (Delta already took it away once), Union FAs have their sharing program written in contract.
Now if only management can work on profitability…
Note to Delta Flight Attendants
Don’t join up for the shitshow.
Gary:
“Boarding pay trades off with wages. Junior crew tend to work more short flights and spend more time boarding, so having wages rolled into flight time redistributes pay from junior flight attendants to more senior ones.”
Isn’t it the opposite? Since junior FAs typically work several shorter flights, they would get more boarding pay the senior FAs who typically work fewer longer flights?
So then service onboard will improve right? LOL
PDB – Should I now expect it before I park myself in 2A?
Are you drunk, Maya Pologies?
Oh…
There it is. Dave W. is just one of Tim’s usernames. It’s so tough to keep track of all of them after so many have been banned.
@ Tim — OK, and your point ? What, the FAs shouldn’t get a pay increase because it costs AA money?? You’re such a jerk.
Actually Gene,
They shouldn’t get a pay increase because they suck.
“AA hasn’t provided an update of how much the new contract will cost it”
Again.. Good Ol’ Tim is an idiot.
AA said the estimate was projected in the 4Q guidance. But despite how much he lies, Tim doesn’t actually read anything from AA/DL/UA about guidance or their own profitability.
He relies on his own gut check based on being fired from Delta which doesn’t prove much.
AA also said that it was accounting for the pilot settlement and then took an even larger charge. Feel free to tell us what AA said it expected to pay in retro.
and in case you missed it, Max, AAL earned more in the 2nd quarter than it expects to earn for the year so it is not expected to make much if any money in the 4th quarter. Hardly a comforting place to be.
When part of the contract involves profit sharing, it is absolutely relevant to note that AA is not likely to make money outside of a few months per year.
If you would type “idiot” a few less times, you might increase your ability to think… MIGHT.
As I have noted before, DL has led the industry in pay increases since covid and the higher costs are putting a big squeeze on weaker carriers.
Add in AA’s inability to generate the revenue that DL and UA do and AA’s financial outlook is not strong.
The flight attendants were prudent to take what they can at this point. They’ve been getting hosed for years and at least the new contract offers some relief. The newest hires are still getting screwed though.
Evan: Yes, getting boarding pay is more beneficial to junior FAs. I’m not sure what “having wages rolled into flight time” means, so that somewhat muddies Gary’s point for me.
I think the flight attendants received a pretty nice deal. Glad to see boarding pay finally included. This is huge for the newer folks.
Had they waited for a better deal, AA might have woken up to the fact that they can’t even afford this deal! Time to move on.
As with any deal, you can’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
hey Max,
we are still waiting for the price that AA will have to pay in retro.
What is the number?
We also want to know the number of passengers that the 2nd airports in Charlotte and Philadelphia carry compared to CLT and PHL.
You said it
Back it up instead of typing “idiot” for the 1000th time today
It seemed that the majority of those claiming to be American Airlines Flight Attendants on VFTW were against the contract. I’m glad for those in the majority of 87% prevailed. I wonder if the passengers will immediately notice a change in how they are treated.
APFA says retro is worth $514 million. I have said over $500 million for months and that is right what AA will have to spend.
UA will spend as much or more.
If you’d like an elite travel experience, please choose Delta.
@ Tim — What’s your point? FAs are humans not numbers.
On an AA flight right now and the service and attitude from FA’s is as sh*tty as always.
So the FAs that deserve to be put out to pasture get the biggest raises, and FAs get rewarded back pay for all their work slow downs and crappy service. Clown world continues unabated.
Gene,
and humans have to be paid by those nasty companies you don’t like.
If the companies can’t afford the salaries, something gives somewhere else.
AA has had toxic relationships with its employees for years. A new contract isn’t going to suddenly turn AA’s FAs into great service providers.
Bring back the ghost riders at AA and clean house with these FA’s that sit and play Candy Crush and don’t do any service.
A couple of years from now I see airlines telling the unions either take concessions or we will go into Chapter 11 and have the court set the agreements aside and we will impose terms that you really won’t like. I see a repeat of the 00s.
A few things:
“Junior flight attendants who need raises the most get the smallest raises” – Misleading. Junior most flight attendants will see a 120% increase over 5 years. 5th year flight attendants will see 83% over 5 years. 8th year flight attendants will see 81% increase over 5 years. So without mentioning this, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
“The union negotiated that new hires will work straight reserve longer so that current employees get better schedules. This amounts to B-scale work rules.” – Opinionated. Considering current FA’s on reserve have different work rules. Reserve FA’s under the new contract will see significant quality of life improvements.
“The contract limits the ability of flight attendants to transfer bases” Speculation. Does not consider future attrition levels. Attrition is expected to accelerate over the life of the contract as the work group ages out. Additionally, some flight attendants living in a base city and commuting to another (ex. LAX to PHX) can now pick up trips originating from LAX.
“there’s no provision for increases in out years (such as inflation increases)” COLA adjustment. This is generally not preferred in collective bargaining in exchange for gains in other areas of the contract.
Not a comment, just curious… Gary mentions that “A 13th year flight attendant gets a 20% raise, or an additional $13.99 per hour”, suggesting that they would be getting $ 83.94 per hour. A conventional annual salary is based upon the annual hours worked as being 40 hours/week X 52 weeks per year, or 2080 hours (lots of corporations make the math easy by using 2000 hours/year as an approximation). In any event, that suggests an annual FA salary as high as $ 174,595 before making hours-worked adjustments. I’m aware that the airline industry has lots of maximum-hours mandates for Pilots, what about the FA’s ? Does anyone know what the FA’s in the 13 to 30 years of experience make annually ?
[“there’s no provision for increases in out years (such as inflation increases)” COLA adjustment. This is generally not preferred in collective bargaining in exchange for gains in other areas of the contract.]
I worked 30 years under collective bargaining union contracts. COLA adjustments were there for all but a few years. Because they were set up as a maximum and minimum percentage, in some years the COLA adjustment was greater than the actual economy increase or decrease. The union reopened the contracts several times, giving back the increases in the last year to get a longer next contract that they felt would be more beneficial over time. COLAs were a central part of our contracts.
If an 18% raise was $5.47 for the juniors, then the juniors were making over $30/hr to begin with. That’s APPALLINGLY HIGH.
@ TexasTK — 65-85 flight hours per month, so $65k-$85k per year. That is for 12-14 days of work per month. The typical worker in the US probably works 19 days per month (accounting for holidays and PTO), but doesn’t have to spend those nights in an airport hotel as part of their job.