Air Canada's Ground-Pay Deal Heaps Pressure on United

It took just four days of strike action for Air Canada’s 10,000 flight attendants to secure what their US counterparts have been demanding for years.  Under their new contract, cabin crew will be paid for all the time they spend working before the plane takes off. 

The deal didn’t come out of nowhere. Crews, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), had been negotiating with management for months. But after talks broke down, they exercised the one weapon US attendants lack - the right to walk out without seeking approval from the National Mediation Board. 

The result was swift. Four days of grounded flights and 500,000 stranded passengers later, Air Canada management agreed to include ground pay in a tentative agreement.

For the first time, Air Canada flight attendants will be compensated for boarding, deplaning, and pre-flight duties at half their hourly rate for up to 70 minutes before flights, rising to 70% by the contract’s fourth year.

Air Canada’s flight attendants have been clear, it is not a perfect solution. But the contrast is clear, and Air Canada’s concession will signal to crew members across North America that ground pay is winnable.

Air Canada flight attendants were on strike for 4 days in August 2025

#Awks 

The breakthrough is especially awkward for United Airlines. Just weeks earlier, 71% of its 28,000 flight attendants voted to reject a $6 billion tentative agreement after five years of negotiations.

The package offered pay raises averaging 26% and introduced boarding pay for the first time at United. But the absence of ground pay proved fatal. For years, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) had told members that compensation for “all hours worked” was a non-negotiable demand. Yet when the deal finally arrived, that promise had vanished.

United flight attendants were unimpressed with the AFA, which had even encouraged members to picket with signs and explained that this was one of the core reasons why negotiations were dragging on. 

USTN polling showed roughly one in five flight attendants said the lack of ground pay as their main reason for rejecting the deal. After half a decade of waiting, crews refused to settle for less than what they had been told was essential.

A Tale of Two Systems

Why was Air Canada’s union able to secure ground pay in four days of strike action, while United’s flight attendants remain without it after five years of negotiations? The central difference lies in labor law.

In Canada, the CUPE had the legal right to strike once talks broke down. Exercising that right immediately grounded flights and stranded passengers, forcing management to respond within days. The outcome was swift and a tentative agreement that recognized ground pay for the first time.

In the United States, flight attendants are bound by the Railway Labor Act, which prohibits strikes unless the National Mediation Board declares negotiations at an impasse. This restriction has effectively neutralized the threat of industrial action, leaving crews reliant on the ratification process to apply pressure. The political environment makes this even more difficult. With Trump in the White House, federal labor policy has remained consistently hostile to strikes, further discouraging regulators from granting permission for walkouts in the airline industry.

The result is stark. Air Canada’s strike demonstrated how quickly management can concede under direct pressure. United’s attendants, unable to deploy the same tactics, remain confined to rejecting unsatisfactory agreements at the ballot box.

Ground-pay has been a crucial point of discussion in Air Canada's negotiation

All I Want for Christmas is Ground Pay

For the AFA, the rejection of United’s tentative agreement was more than just a setback; it was a crisis of credibility. Members accused negotiators of caving on the one issue that mattered most, abandoning the pledge that had justified years of drawn-out talks. One respondent to USTN’s survey went further, describing union leaders as either “incompetent or compromised.” Now, the union must not only fight management but also rebuild trust within its own ranks.

Mediated negotiations are set to resume on December 9, 2025, with further sessions scheduled into early 2026. For United, the message from both its own crews and from across the border is clear: a deal without ground pay is unlikely to pass. 

Air Canada’s strike demonstrates how quickly management can respond when pressure is real and leverage exists. United’s crews may not have the right to strike, and the Trump administration’s hostility to labor action makes an NMB-approved walkout even less likely. But they have demonstrated their willingness to reject any agreement that fails to address unpaid work.

The wider industry in the US is unlikely to ignore this moment. Air Canada’s tentative deal cracks open a precedent airlines have long resisted. Paying attendants for boarding, deplaning, and other ground duties is slipping from a pie-in-the-sky demand to a contractual reality.

The outcome of December’s talks will show if United can address ground pay and secure a deal, or if history repeats with another failed vote.