‘5 Years. No Raises.’ United Flight Attendants Just Scored Retro Pay, Big Raises, And A Win Over Scheduling Algorithms

United Airlines and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA have reached an agreement on a new contract.

It’s been five years since United flight attendants have received a raise, with the value of their pay significantly eroded by inflation in the meantime. The contract became amendable four years ago, however:

• the pandemic wasn’t a good time to negotiate a new deal (any agreement would not have been favorable to flight attendants with the airline industry in poor shape)

• the union’s strategy was to wait for flight attendants at other airlines – especially American – to negotiate their deals first and set a new baseline to negotiate from. AFA-CWA even lent their top negotiator to American’s rival cabin crew union, expecting that if a strike were necessary to secure a deal it would be their crew who bore the brunt.

Key elements of the agreement include substantial pay increases that position United flight attendants among the highest-paid in the industry, improved retirement benefits, and new scheduling work rules.The tentative contract addresses long-standing duty and rest time.

Specifics of the deal haven’t been released yet, but will be available in the coming days. AFA-CWA is promoting the win that the contract doesn’t allow use of ‘PBS’ (Preferential Bidding System) computer scheduling.

United Airlines expressed optimism that this agreement would foster stronger employee relations and enhance customer experience. Good luck with that! It addresses eroded value of wages, and alleviates the sort of acrimonious labor relations that led the union to organize guerrilla theater takeover of the airline’s new business class product unveil this month.

Flight attendants will still have to ratify the deal. Pending major surprises though it seems likely, though some flight attendants will believe that they can always do better – that you should ‘never take the first deal’. However starting the click on “40% total economic improvements” in the first year along with retro pay is going to be something most crew will want right away.

This story originally appeared in View From the Wing.