United Airlines and its flight attendants union have agreed on a new contract. Cabin crew will be asked to vote for it, and since they’ve gone five years without a raise many are excited by better pay.
- The contract became amendable during the pandemic, which was a bad time to negotiate for higher airline wages.
- Then the union decided to slow walk negotiations, letting American Airlines go first (and possibly have to endure a strike) in order to set a new higher baseline to bargain from. The union at United, AFA-CWA, even lent American’s union their lead negotiator.
- But the union lost much of its leverage with the change in administration – a Biden-controlled National Mediation Board might have been more likely to let them strike (although they’d been unwilling to sign off on other strikes, at least before the election.
AFA-CWA had been promising United’s flight attendants revolutionary pay increases and pay for ‘ground time’ and not just boarding pay (time at the airport spent waiting). They did not get this.
Instead, the new United deal looks like a big raise because it represents cumulative raises crew would have received in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. Put another way, it’s basically just an inflation-adjustment.
- Since the last flight attendants raise at United, the value of their wages have eroded about 24%.
- And the union says the average increase in this contract is 26.9%.
That’s going to matter a lot for United flight attendants! But the wage increase mostly just gets them back to where they were five years ago. The value in this new contract, then, comes from:
- Retro pay: they get cash for the previous years where they worked for less
- Boarding pay: copying non-union Delta, which American then copied, crew will get paid for time in the aircraft prior to pushback
- Better life on the road: Better per diem, layover hotels and inflight meals plus adding Halloween as a recognized holiday.
Flight attendants are being told they need to vote for this deal. Many believe they should ‘never take the first offer’ though of course this is not the first offer. It’s the one the union believes is best, which is also disappointing to many. They’ve been promised a lot more by their representatives for years. They waited years with low pay… for this?
Yet at the same time, union leaders are correct that it’s likely the best they could do, and there’s no doubt concern that their negotiating position could deteriorate if they wait – if the economy declines and airline profits decline they might not secure more. And cabin crew working under the old deal actually do need the money! Retro pay doesn’t make up for years of waiting because those are actually years of life struggling with lower pay.
So while an inflation adjustment and some work-life improvements may not be all they’d hoped for, the union’s judgment that they need to take the win and move on is likely the correct take.
“Just”? Yeah, I get it, folks can always do even better, and they will eventually. Things will never be perfect, but that’s the nature of ‘progress,’ incremental wins matter as do ‘leaps and bounds.’
@ Gary — Thank you. Over at OMAAT, the writer was acting as if the FAs got some amazing deal. They did not get anything but an inflation adjustment.
John Deere is moving some production to Mexico. Medicare cut payments 3% in 2025 (Biden-did it and Trump-didn’t reverse it). So a United FA pay cut might be justified but, at least, not a pay raise beyond inflation. Did they do more and better service? No.
FA jobs should be for early in the career then go on to better things. FA pay for those with lots of seniority should be cut and new FA pay increased. There should be no pay raises after about 10 years of experience because older FAs are not better. Some are even worse than the less experienced.
Pay should be about $40/hour for 1 year of experience, not $28/hour. Pay should increase to about $45 or so and then stop. Senior FA are not worth $67/hour.
FAs making $96/hour? Crazy. They are worth about $45 for the most experience. Cut their pay.
New FA should go from $28/hour to $40/hour
@derek — Nah, just pay them more.
Well if Scott Kirby is saying United is doing well and the revenue is still holding strong they need to ask for more.Notice how a lot of the recession talk has stopped now, haven’t you? He was even talking about the record numbers for Memorial Day
AA secured sit pay for long sit times and AFA didn’t even bother to get this???
AFA gave in to concessions and AA’s union did not.
If AFA was trying to court Delta and make United flight attendants happy with an industry leading contract they have missed the mark.
Gary needs to shut up. You have no idea what being a flight attendant is!!!! Sounds like a republican. Get over yourself. We deserved it.
I meant Derek. Sorry.
And yet and inflation adjustment is all most of us yet if we’re doing the same job year after year. If you get promoted you get more money or, a real raise. However, the value of the same job doesn’t tend to increase over inflation year after year. And they got a couple nice perks in there too. Good enough
No offense to the union, flight attendants or parents with kids who really like Halloween, but I wouldn’t take any request for this to be a holiday seriously as an employer. Asking for this seems frivolous and undermines the rest of the union’s demands.
Ask your boss for a raise plus Halloween off and see how it goes.
@Daniel: It’s not for the day off, it’s holiday pay. We get paid for 5 holidays a year and people want to be compensated more for days that are important to their families/kids
@Lamont — Good correction! Phew!
Gary just needs to make every column sound calamitous, because that’s what he does to produce X number of columns per week.
The fact of the matter is that United FAs got what everyone else has in pay, plus 1%. That’s industry standard, plus 1%. They also got boarding pay, and FULL retro pay, something no other FA union had ever gotten. Plus quality-of-life improvements. It IS a good contract for them.
I’m not sure what else you think they could have possibly gotten, seeing as how this puts them (slightly) ahead of every other FA group in the country.
Also, the Biden (or ANY Republican or Democratic) Administration would NEVER allow one of the top 4 airlines in the US (AA,UA,DL,WN) to shut down, even temporarily, due to a strike.
If Gary Leff actually knew anything about what he was talking about, his columns would be a lot less entertaining.
Maybe the FA’s should pool their money and start an airline. Then they can pay themselves all a CEO level salary and retire after a few years. Some cold, hard economic facts may emerge after a while, but you never know.
Most people just get cost of living at most in the same job.
Except that these rates are higher than both AA and DL, and they get full retro pay. This is clickbait.
A lot of people at other jobs would be happy to have their pay increased to cover the losses due to inflation. I wonder how the retro pay will be figured. Also, I wonder how many people will retire once they get their retro pay. Additionally, the retro pay will end up in one tax year, possibly causing tax problems and almost certainly will cause more taxes to be paid as compared to having a portion of it distributed over each of the last few years. It is still better than not having an agreement with management. It is still the same contract but with new amendments.
Retro pay is a major win, but is it full retro? Most agreements don’t have full retro at the currently rates, but are adjusted for inflation. Hopefully UA will spread it out so the tax hit isn’t tragic, and maybe some forward looking FAs will opt to put it towards their 401Ks to fill up and reduce the taxes.
@derek, get of my lawn old man!
the AFA provides the best advertisements for DL management
derek, I actually agree with you about flight attendants only flying a short while and then going on to better things. I mean seriously. I hate that I make a decent salary, have a lot of days off, don’t work 9-5 M-F and have traveled around and around the World with great layovers on someone else’s dime. It is just so crappy. I think I’d rather be you. You seem like such a nice guy that is living his best life. I’ll crawl back to my terrible job after I sip down my lovely coffee in the morning along the Grand Canal. Ciao!
Gary was falsely accused by this….”Gary just needs to make every column sound calamitous, because that’s what he does to produce X number of columns per…”
Gary has a daytime job. He works hard to produce his column. Gary doesn’t push specific credit cards, like some columns.
Getting paid $96/hour is obscene. Airfares are high partly because of that.
Flyer 1 please suck down another aperol. We are so glad you’re living your best life! But the bragging only sets you up for the fall.
The reason why flight attendant pay is so seniority-based (new flight attendants are often most pleasant but most underpaid while the grouchy senior flight attendants are arguably overpaid) is because companies have an incentive to “buy the votes” of incumbent flight attendants. The incumbent flight attendants get overpaid in exchange for voting for a contract that binds future new flight attendants to a low salary. Since union contracts require a majority of current flight attendants (future flight attendants don’t get a vote) seniority-based pay will be the political equilibrium in almost every case.
Halloween as a holiday, eh? I guess Arbor Day was already one as well.
The union is correct. Take the offer , the present “tariff mess” the government has brought , could start to have negative affects, in which case the offer could be changed.
Now they need to hope the airline can raise fares because if not lower performing routes will be cut and jobs will be cut. And it’s the newer flight attendants at the bottom that will be the first to go.
Fortunately we live in a capitalist society where people cannot dictate what others will be paid. It never has anything to do with “fair” or what a person “deserves” both are subjective. It is about what you can negotiate.
Regarding senior flight attendants, what value do you place on the senior flight attendants who got all the passengers out of the U.S. Air flight and onto the wing in mere seconds? Sully put it in the river, but it was the senior flight attendants who directed the evacuation.
RE: Halloween as a holiday – WTH?
Airlines are a 24/7/365 operation. Any airline employee knows they will have to work weekends, holidays, early mornings, late nights, and overnights during their career. Adjustments from the “regular” working lifestyle are routine (i.e. Thursday is my “Sunday”). Christmas presents get opened on the 23rd, Thanksgiving dinner is delayed until Saturday, fireworks bought from the local stand are lit on July 3rd, and birthday celebrations are late, to name a few. It’s just what you do when you have an airline career.
But Halloween is Halloween. If you miss it (due to your scheduled trip) you miss it. You cannot go out with your kids the night before or after. Parents only have a few precious years to enjoy the fun of the experience with their kids. Halloween (NOT Christmas, New Years, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, etc.) is actually the single day with the highest spike of sick calls by crews of any holiday for a reason.
By adding Halloween to the list of recognized holidays (and getting the associated overtime pay with it) flight attendants without kids will be incentivized to work it, resulting in the more junior crew members (typically the younger ones who more likely have younger kids) having the day off than they would otherwise. It’s a Win-Win. United’s pilots got the same deal a few years ago – their contract added holiday incentive pay for Halloween, but does not have any for Easter and Memorial Day, for the same reason.
It may seem like a silly perk from the outside looking in, but airline employees know it actually helps improve our quality of home life quite a lot, and brings a little more “normalcy” to an already strange way to make a living.
United Airline has been making an enormous amount of profits, despite the lucrative contract that was negotiated with the pilots. They can afford this flight attendant contract and still make a ton of money. The flight attendant job can be difficult on families due to the traveling away from home and difficult to stay healthy; ever see the crappy hotel gyms. Difficult to own a pet or go to college even remotely. They miss family holidays and birthdays. I believe that the company stretched out the negotiations for a contract merely because a majority of flight attendants are women and the company did not take them seriously. Now…… I believe that the flight attendants could possibly be taken more seriously if collectively as a group they behaved more professionally in their job and attended to the passenger’s needs instead of hiding in the galley or being so snarky with passengers.Sorry, not an indictment of all flight attendants. Congratulations on your tentative contract. You deserve it.
Devil is in the details. This probably won’t pass.
As a United FA, I think the contract is fair and I will vote yes. Some of my colleagues are asking for way too much… they want more per diem than even the pilots get… and they want “ground pay” which is unnecessary and unheard of in the airline industry (our hourly pay rate is inflated to cover this type of thing already, and pilots do not even get “ground pay”).
My reto check alone will be with over $30K, so I’m happy. Many of the coworkers of mine who think that $84 isn’t enough are the same ones who disappear after the service and play on their phones for the rest of the flight. I think $84 per hour is about as fair as it can get.
Never take the first offer especially when Delta, Southwest, and Alaska run circles around you! Alaska even has an agreement to pay more than United. Don’t be weak and let United play you. Fire Ken Diaz, tell them to go back to the table and bring you actually industry leading. They have it!
@Jan
You claim to be a United FA who intends to vote yes when you haven’t even seen or read the FULL tentative agreement. It’s FA’s like you who are the reason a truly industry leading contract remains out of reach. There is more to a contract than just money but you’ve already decided to vote yes. United is depending on people like you to just blindly vote in favor of something without actually reading it first. The devil is always in the details and the union will always play up the highlights of any TA but they’ll leave the compromises made out of the highlights. I hope United FA’s will take the time to read, read and then reread this TA get pass the hype that the union and United want them to focus on and focus on the details that neither United or the AFA want found at this point in time because all they want you focused on is hourly wage and retro pay.
Maryland…Bragging? Have you ever actually read the 99% of comments that call me old, fat, stupid, uneducated, gnarly? It is quite tiring listening to all these people that have never actually flown and just want to stomp down on others. I’m not bragging. I’m telling that Ahole derek how Blessed I am and am so fortunate not to have to live his grumpy I hate everything life.