Two months ago, United Airlines and its flight attendants union came to an agreement on a new contract that meant significant wage increases – although hourly rates basically just offset five years of inflation.
The big win was the add-on of boarding pay, pioneered by non-union Delta and already copied by American. The union failed to achieve ‘ground pay’ (pay for time in the airport) that they’d been promising their members.
I wrote that a revolt against the contract was brewing for both legitimate gripes and misunderstandings.
Ultimately 71% of voting flight attendants rejected the contract, with 92 of those eligible casting ballots.
According to AFA-CWA union chapter President Ken Diaz,
United Flight Attendants today voted to send a strong message to United Airlines management by rejecting a tentative agreement that didn’t go far enough to address the years of sacrifice and hard work to make the airline the success it is today. This is democracy in action.
Flight Attendants need substantial improvements as soon as possible. Our union will survey members as quickly as possible to identify the key issues Flight Attendants are ready to fight to achieve in an agreement they want to ratify. We always said no matter the outcome of the vote, we will fight forward and that is what we will do with the power of 28,000 Flight Attendants and our whole union standing together.
Flight attendants sending “a strong message to…management” is one way to spin it. They sent a strong message to their union rejecting the contract that their leadership negotiated and recommended.
The union made the point clearly to flight attendants that while some of them thought they should ‘never take the first offer’ this was anything but a first offer – it was the best offer. It seems clear that,
- The union got all the economic value that was on the table
- Flight attendants have different priorities. The union read their membership wrong, and communicated with them poorly. How the union chose to parcel out the economic spoils in the new contract didn’t match what flight attendants wanted, hence the need to “survey members..to identify the key issues” that crewmembers want.
- 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).
What’s unfortunate is that it’s been five years since flight attendants at United have had a raise, and this means that they will wait even longer. Senior crewmembers can largely manage that but entry-level wages are not high in this industry.
“and DL is still getting more new Airbus widebodies delivered this year – as was true in 2024 – than UA or any other US airline.”
What a weird thing to say.
In other news, AA is getting more 787-9P delivered this year than Delta or any other US airline. Great Tim, Delta is getting more airbus wide bodies delivered than the other US carriers with no scheduled Airbus widebody deliveries in 2025.
You just love to ignore that nothing has changed about United’s order book. It’s massively larger than Delta’s on wide bodies and narrow bodies yet you still keep this weird “Delta growth” narrative due to well-known Boeing and Airbus delivery issues.
Nothing has changed about United’s desire to grow their domestic network except for Boeing Max10 issues — a plane Delta also has on order.
@MaxPower — @Gene, @L737, @Mike Hunt, and I were just talking on the other comment treat in (‘Southwest Airlines Has Finally Lost It…’); you and @Tim Dunn aren’t literally the same guy going back and forth, right? Sorry, a bit ‘meta,’ and I highly doubt it, but we’re trying to settle a ‘conspiracy theory’ wager over there. Thanx!
*thread (though, it’s becoming a ‘treat,’ I suppose…)
Also, @Tim Dunn, beyond the tsunami situation, volcano in far-east Russia (Klyuchevskoy) just started erupting again; that often hampers Pacific flight paths. Fun times…
Back to the subject. What was the sticking points why this contract was not approved? The wage increases (with boarding pay) seemed fair.
@1990
Though it’s likely a great way to generate VERY low-revenue clicks dying to see us attack the other so ferociously with perceived winners and losers. But to assume we’re the same person equally deranged…
Alas, No. I’m not a fired delta employee like Tim. Nor do I care about any airline in any way the way Delta is enshrined within Tim. Public Companies are not my lord and savior. Alas.
I can understand a perceived view of the two of us as Harry Potter and Voldemort. Hermione was chatting about that with me the other day…
But alas, I shudder to think about his horcrux anywhere inside me…
@MaxPower — Ah, a ‘chamber of secrets,’ indeed!
@MaxPower @1990 — I certainly hope the next back and forth is a debate on who is Harry and who is Voldemort!
@l737
GOD DAMN IT! I thought my Hermione reference would illuminate even the dullest minds! WHERE. IS. SNAPE?! Always slithering off when he’s needed! And the Malfoys—HA! Preening, cowering, decorative little cowards… USELESS!
Yes, ChatGPT but I try
1990,
there are alot of people that never thought 47 could pull off the tariff strategy and yet it seems to be happening.
they call if the Pacific Rim and Rim of Fire for good reason.
max,
you incessantly (and other people too) talk about how big UA’s order book is but you can’t grasp that the size of the order book doesn’t matter. What is actually RECEIVED does matter. As is true with most things, DL delivers results while UA talks.
as for domestic expansion, it was never reasonable to think that UA could add as many aircraft as UA ordered without tanking UA’s own financial performance by creating overcapacity.
Kirby – and yes I am harping on him because he said it – can’t grasp that when you flood the market to drive out competitors, you are going to push down yields which limit UA’s ability to grow its network.
and, again, DL is actually adding more domestic capacity than UA but doesn’t tout it. 4% growth on DL’s larger domestic system amounts to more absolute capacity than UA’s 6% growth.
As hard as it is for you to admit – and I don’t have any expectation that you ever will – DL simply outsmarts UA.
and that includes labor relations which is the one strategy on which UA isn’t even thinking about copying DL.
and the losers are UA FAs. and mechanics. and baggage handlers….
1990,
Max uses AI.
I train the models.
there’s the difference
Lol.
Tim the child-molester defender so long as they work for Delta…
Who is surprised
Get a therapist you creep.
Only you would defend a delta child abuser with scripture
What a creep.
I fully admit to AI when I use it as I Did. AI identified you as the idiot delta propagandist
Congrats
You’ve made it: even AI knows you’re a fired schill
you got taken to the cleaners because you don’t know what one of the key statements in human history about guilt and yet you keep coming – and all you prove is how ignorant you are.
stop the childish character attacks when all it proves is that you are clueless – yet again.
and UA’s FAs still don’t have a contract while DL FAs have taken home tens of thousands in profit sharing year after year since UA’s FA contract became amendable.
Yes…
Tim Dunn defending only Delta child abusers is ok because your view of Delta-based Christianity is… You only defend Delta child abusers via out of context Bible verses. On this website and others. Find some credibility. You don’t have it now.
I’ll judge the F out of men that put their D**cks in a girls’ mouth that is under age 10 (to be clear, under age 18 too).
Or if they put a camera on a girl’s toilet. An airline doesn’t buy my moral compass like it does yours.
And I don’t need to qualify my judgement via a skewed biblical verse to make Child abuse ok so long as an employee works for Delta. That’s where you need to apologize and without equivocation.
Fellas, I’ll admit, I do enjoy when the heat gets turned up; and the past several days have been a scorcher (in NYC at least.) It’s anecdotal, and I’m just one guy, but I want you each to know that I have tickets with Delta AND United in the coming weeks. There’s plenty of us frequent flyers to go around. Keep it up!
1990,
storms are coming. They mostly are neuron misfires in Max’s head.
Only in his perverted mind could he construe that anyone including me was defending a child molester
but Max has proven over and over that he is more driven to try to land a blow than to even get the facts straight.
in your attempts to scorn others, Max, you can’t understand that you are as vile and sick as pervert pilot. Your heart is dark and evil.
Pervert pilot and his FA counterpart at AA are solely responsible for their actions, just as you are for yours.
In your world where you need to blame someone else for everything else, it is impossible for you to realize that you are as sick as the people you condemn.
that is why you are in no place to throw any stones at anyone.