The United Airlines flight attendant contract that the union negotiated may already be in trouble. Online chatter is heavily negative. The AFA-CWA had promised that, after five years without a raise, their members would get industry-leading pay. Instead they’re getting pay comparable to Delta, and more or less an inflation-adjustment. The average increase in the contract is 26.9%, against inflation since last raise of 24%.
AFA-CWA had gotten flight attendants excited about the prospect of getting more than just ‘boarding pay’ (matching what non-union Delta first introduced) but pay for all ground time – the time not just on the plane, but sitting in the airport. That’s nowhere to be found in the contract. Some of what they do get, though, includes:
- 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.
However specific, apocalyptic concerns over what the union negotiated are beginning to spread wildly. Frankly, some of the concerns seem baseless to me. So the future of the contract – whether flight attendants vote to ratify it or not – likely hinges on how well the union communicates with its members, and how much flight attendants trust the union. They need to quell these concerns quickly.
As aviation watchdog JonNYC notes:
UA AFA TA full language now is available to members "and so far from what I heard feedbacks are pretty negative. People saying too many loopholes and under company’s discretion"
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) June 10, 2025
Here are the broad categories of concern I’m seeing and hearing about. Some of it is legitimate, while much of it is misplaced or a misunderstanding of how contracts work under the Railway Labor Act.
- Scope & Job Security: New codeshare/joint venture language and temporary assignments could erode protected flying and seniority.
- I don’t see this as a risk. United participates in codeshares and joint ventures today. Flight attendants can lean on pilot scope to protect them from outsourcing.
- Classification & Duties: Hybrid roles and ad-hoc purser/trainers may mean more work without override pay.
- This could be a give-back if an accurate read of the contract, unless a side-letter restores the override.
- Scheduling, Reassignment & Hours of Service: Anticipated block legality and “operational necessity” reroutes weaken pay-protection and stretch reserves.
- The concern is overstated about looking to anticipated block time, since FAA rules look at scheduled time for crew legality. However, re-routes would be a big deal if pay-protection now requires finishing the pairing and no longer compensates for time lost.
- Compensation & Incentives requiring 85 hour thresholds for bonuses is worrying flight attendants.
- This is mostly routine in the industry. flight attendants who routinely drop time can forfeit incentives but that’s a choice.
- Expenses & Reimbursements: Digital-only submission with tight deadlines risks denied claims if tech fails.
- They are actually complaining about submitting receipts electronically instead of paper. This is not an economic take-away.
- Vacation & Leave: Added holiday blackouts and vendor-managed leaves can bypass seniority and delay approvals.
- Blackout dates for vacation seem like a significant erosion. Outsourced processing of leaves could be a hassle if the vendor is worse than United in-house.
- Training: “Voluntary” modules encourage unpaid work.
- Airlines don’t generally pay for non-regulatory e-learning though?
- Furlough & Recall: E-mail-only recall could penalize those who miss a message.
- Missing an e-mail isn’t going to cost anyone return from furlough – recall rights will generally persist until a flight attendant affirmatively declines.
- Grievance & Discipline: Informal notes could count toward discipline but can’t be grieved.
- If this informal ‘coaching’ is used to build a disciplinary record then it would be a due process downgrade.
- Emergency & Duration Clauses: United can re-open the contract for economic hardship in an emergency. That means flight attendants could see lower pay than what’s in the contract.
- That’s just a misunderstanding. Under the Railway Labor Act, status quo pay and work rules prevail until both sides agree to a change or the National Mediation Board releases them to self-help.
There’s concern about flight attendants being liable for tech failures and not responding to the company when called, but all airlines require crew to monitor their apps. Actual discipline requires just cause. Assigning purser duties without purser pay is problematic.
It ultimately strikes me that when a key complaint is electronic submission of receipts for reimbursement, that opponents of the deal aren’t being intellectually honest. They’re going through the contract looking for problems that aren’t really there. When the reality is that flight attendants should be most disappointed by the pay provisions. Though it’s likely the economic deal they could realistically expect, it’s not what the union led them to believe for years that they’d get.
Update: AFA-CWA writes to me,
There’s a lot of misinformation out there.
- There is no reference to “operational necessity” in the entire tentative agreement or current contract. Flight Attendants serving on reserve are not “reassigned,” they are given assignments and provided the reserve guarantees or the value of the trips they fly – whichever is greater. This is how it works today and the Tentative Agreement doesn’t change it.
- There is no restriction or “blackout” on vacation days or a third-party vendor processing of vacation.
- You are correct: under the Railway Labor Act there is no “emergency reopener,” because the company claims hardship or for any other reason.
And this is my point exactly. Many concerns with the tentative agreement are misreadings, and as I wrote above getting this passed will require strong communication efforts by the union and will be a test of trust by its membership.
UA mgmt would love for them to reject the contract and then benefit for years more of reduced cost labor.
Is it a perfect contract? Not even close. Is it good enough under the current circumstances? You bet.
Time to stop letting perfection get in the way of perfectly acceptable.
Ah yes here’s Gary to tell FAs (who he despises) why they should vote a certain way in a contract for a company that he doesn’t even work for (or fly on, based on his posts).
You didn’t even mention the majority of the complaints from the reddit posts that you take content from lol.
How many kirbybux did they pay you to put this out?
Mind your own business if you’re going to be wrong.
It’s not “retro pay” as they want to consider it a “signing bonus” so we are taxed heavily, years without a contract and they want to retro pay JUST 4% for the first 3 years and 25% for the 4th. You have to work a minimum of 480 plus to get healthcare (which we already pay a lot for monthly and we have higher cancer rates and injuries), they want flight attendants over 65 to only rely on Medicare. A company that makes billions can’t even give a proper contract. Delta will get more and more raises while we are frozen in an archaic contract.
Lemme guess, they’re demanding first class too?
@Eva Why not have FAs over 65 rely only on Medicare. After all, the slogan is “Medicare for All”.
@derek, Medicare only is problematic for a job which frequently requires international travel. Medicare does not cover any international medical treatment, and Supplemental/Advantage have a very limited lifetime limit on medical expenses. Perhaps there is more coverage for injury/illness on international business trips, but that would be my concern. I’ve heard horror stories about someone who developed a heart problem overseas, who couldn’t be immediately repatriated, and went through both their Medicare supplemental plans and an extra travel insurance policy, leaving about $25k of uncovered expenses.
Sounds like United is possibly still treating its flight attendants like it did those on United 23…watch the documentary.
United isn’t as profitable as Delta, but now clears ~$1B+ per quarter in what it calls “adjusted net income”…its non-fuel CASM of 12.6 cents in 2024 is lower than Delta (13.7 cents)…due in part to lower FA pay.
capt freedom,
UA’s profits are directly tied to its lower labor costs not just for FAs but for every non-pilot workgroup. all 6 of UA’s non-pilot unionized workgroups are working under amendable contracts right now.
and UA’s RASM and CASM are lower than DL in part because UA flies longer stage lengths.
@ Timmy — UAL stock up 57% in one year? Delta? Remember, stock price is the only metric that matters.
Thank goodness SK won’t have to live in his car in the employee parking lot.
In 2024, Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines, received a total compensation of $33.9 million. This includes a base salary of $1.2 million, a $3 million bonus, $5.1 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation, and $24.4 million in stock awards.
Go work at Walmart.
Gary. Would you compare United flight attendant contract with the new American Airlines contract recently approved. Does United have a better “deal?”
> It’s not “retro pay” as they want to consider it a “signing bonus” so we are taxed heavily,
United has absolutely no say into how any pay awarded in the new contract is taxed (nor do I really think they care). If you were thinking that you could otherwise amend your previous year’s tax returns to show the retroactive pay increase, the IRS doesn’t allow that — nor, I suspect, would you really want it, as it would mean that you’d get hit with taxes and penalties for underreporting income going back to the start of the contract.
Bonuses of any type are withheld at 22% (plus FICA and Medicare withholding) under current tax law. That has nothing to do with the actual tax paid — it’s just the amount they withhold from your paycheck. If you end up in a lower tax bracket than 22%, the excess will be refunded; if you end up in a higher tax bracket, you’ll owe the IRS money at the end of the year. But it’s important to understand that just because the IRS keeps $x now doesn’t necessarily mean your tax on that income is $x.
At the end of the year, the total tax you pay is identical whether you get paid a lump-sum bonus or smaller payments spread out over time.
Gene,
you clearly know so little about business – or else intentionally cherrypick data in order to avoid reality.
UA stock grew as much as it did in 2024 because it, like AA, was so far undervalued compared to DL for so long.
and yet, UAL as a company is still worth just 80% of DAL.
none of which changes that UAL’s earnings will take a hit as it settles – one way or another – with its labor groups or faces the kind of employee dissatisfaction that UA saw in Brooklyn and AA put up with for far too long.
And there has been a major transfer of revenue from UA at EWR to AAL and DAL at LGA and JFK as a result of what should have been a routine runway closure that blew up w/ ATC issues and UAL’s CEO escalating the issue of EWR not being slot controlled that scared away huge numbers of passengers from EWR.
Employees pay for mgmt mistakes but UAL employees still expect to be paid comparably to their direct competitors which AA, DL and WN are all paying.
Not sure this is the ‘poison pill’ that some are making it out to be. While I expect union-bashing on here, the real progress should not be derailed. I’d say what they’re already getting is more than just incremental; it’s necessary. Yes, workers (and consumers) deserve better. I blame management and the ownership class for their greed and incompetence. Don’t let them divide and conquer.
@Tim Dunn — Not to nitpick, but United in ‘Brooklyn’? Both LGA and JFK are technically in Queens. It’ll be interesting once JFK’s new Terminal 5,6,7 is complete, as that may actually be worthy of UA’s return there. Without a global pandemic wrecking their earlier attempt, this time (with that new B6 partnership) should go better. We’ll see, though.
@George N Romey — Walmart? You mean the top employer of beneficiaries of government assistance? Yeah, they cost US taxpayers $6.2 billion, because they don’t pay a living wage. What a worthless point you made above.
If you’re not a united FA, you should STFU and mind your business. No one cares about you or you’re “opinion”. YOU shouldn’t have one unless you’re a united FA PERIOD.
*your
I love all the armchair flight attendant responses. You have no clue what else this job entails except to serve you a small cup of Coke and pretzels. Would you like someone else to comment on your job THINKING how easy it is without knowing what you have to know at your job? I didn’t think so.
Does anyone find it laughable that AFA is trying to court Delta when they just offered United flight attendants one of the worst deals in the industry with the least amount of protections? If there was ever a question about it before Delta will never go AFA
Saying “no” is easier both to do and to advocate for than saying “yes”.
This is a recurrent problem across all of our society today and we all suffer for it.
We’ve got companies throwing up their hands about relatively simple problems.
We’ve got politicians whose entire platform is doing nothing and vilifying anyone who does anything.
Individuals shrugging their shoulders in powerless capitulation.
It’s got to stop.
NO
It turns out that there’s lots more extremely bad things buried in the contract. The Kirby – sorry, I mean Devil – really is in the details. I can’t possibly see how the FA’s could accept such a horrifying contract, higher pay or not.
it seems certain that UA’s customer service will deteriorate. Either UA FAs will vote in this TA and know for years they have been taken advantage of or they reject it and may never see a decent offer again.
Kirby was never known for good employee relations at any other airline; he has now been through a cycle of contract negotiations and he is ready to leave his mark on UA.
@Tim Dunn — And, if that does come to pass (diminished customer service), passengers will blame individual agents, flight attendants, etc., when it really is a management’s own greed.
@mallthus is right. This really is a larger issue than just United. It’s a microcosm for the greater societal issues we’re living through at the moment. I look forward to the day when workers and consumers are re-empowered to defend themselves against these overreaches by big money and power.
1990
Regardless of whether people perceive a decline in service as specific to an individual or a reflection of mgmt’s strategies, people will figure it out if employees quickly become unhappy.
Remember that UA had decades of bad employee relations which turned around with Oscar Munoz. It doesn’t take much to undo that; it is clear that UA will shell out huge amounts of money to raise its employees to industry-competitive rates and their profitability will fall as a result. Whether they are playing a game of chicken or are serious about weakening their unions in order to get better productivity will become clear but there will be many employees that will see a change and take it out on customers. there are decades of airline industry labor history to see how this could unfold.
and United could well be picking the labor groups that it wants to placate – and spend money to keep peace with – and those that they don’t think are worth it.
The two highly skilled labor groups at any airline are pilots and mechanics and those are the two most costly employees to replace.
They also are both not direct customer contact employees.
@Tim Dunn — Relevant points all-around, sir. Thank you for taking the time to respond. As a passengers, I certainly like to see happy, well-rested, and well-supported crews.