American Airlines flight attendants just ratified a new contract which provides 18% – 20% raises right away, full retro pay, plus boarding pay that the union says averages to an 8.5% raise as well. To get this, the union negotiated that new hires will get a worse deal than incumbent crewmembers have had.

Flight attendants there had been without a raise since 2019. The pandemic obviously slowed things down – the union wouldn’t have wanted to do a deal when nobody was flying and the airline was hemorrhaging money.

United Airlines negotiations, too, have dragged on for years. The parties are in federal mediation. And the union has updated its base pay demands.

• 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.

Aviation watchdog JonNYC provides the detail and table of what the United Airlines AFA-CWA flight attendants union is asking for in mediated negotiations:

“From AFA at UAL. Asking for 28% immediate raise, 1/2 of base pay for ground pay (so all non-flying duty hours), and a 4% raise every year until a new contract is agreed on.” pic.twitter.com/QnO031m14u

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) October 3, 2024

Already, the airline’s flight attendants voted to authorize a strike. For that to happen, the National Mediation Board would have to declare an impasse, followed by a 30-day cooling off period before releasing the parties to “self-help.”

That isn’t going to happen this year!

• They haven’t even finished laying out demands across all parts of the contract in their mediated negotiations.

• The Mediation Board’s members are majority-appointed by the current administration. Those members aren’t going to authorize a strike before the election.

• And there’s certainly no appetite for authorizing a strike while longshoremen are striking and the administration has said they will not order the dockworkers back on the job.

Ultimately we can expect that United’s deal will look similar to American’s but perhaps a little bit better, and profit sharing will be the biggest difference because even if they end up with the same formula United is more profitable.

But profit-sharing is the real difference-maker broadly. Delta Air Lines is the most profitable U.S. carrier, and their profit-sharing payments will make their cabin crew the highest paid. Delta flight attendants are non-union, so their pay is re-evaluated annually. They get raises each year. If United flight attendants see out-year increases like American’s, they are likely to be quickly surpassed by Delta wages.