On Monday, Delta Air Lines announced plans to raise wages by 5% this year for its non-union workforce in preparation for the busy summer travel season ahead.
The landmark pay increase is due to start from June 1 and applies to all Delta’s flight attendants, ground handlers, mechanics, and some office workers, among others. The raise will not apply to pilots, who, unionized by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), ratified a contract last year.
Over the past two years, Delta has given its union-free flight attendants two other substantial pay rises: a 5% pay rise in February last year that followed a significant 4% raise in May 2022.
This had already cemented Delta flight attendants’ position as by far the best-paid in the industry, causing them to earn on average 5k more than their peers at other major airlines.
The new raise will now see starting pay at Delta’s mainline operation rise from $16.55 to $19 an hour.
“With this increase in base pay and starting rates, we continue our commitment to provide Delta people with industry-leading total compensation for industry-leading performance,” said Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian in a memo to staff on Monday.
Bastian further said that the company has raised pay among major work groups by a cumulative 20% to 25% since 2022.
Furthermore, the welcome news for flight attendants also follows Delta's generous payout to frontline and middle management staff back in February, which involved a $1.4 billion payout in profit sharing and gave employees roughly two months of extra pay.
As Delta Air Lines flight attendants reap the rewards of their carrier’s economic team-driven success, unionized flight attendants at United Airlines, American, and many more have been unable to secure new contracts with corporate management, leading to protests across the country.
Monday’s news is likely to have come as a particularly enraging blow for United Airlines flight attendants, who only on April 11 staged a worldwide day of protest against corporate greed within United’s management, organized by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) union.
Still without a new contract since 2019, United flight attendants discovered that CEO Scott Kirby’s pay had almost doubled in 2023 at $19 million.
AFA tried to unsuccessfully launch a unionization campaign of Delta’s cabin crew back in late 2019. However, it has become even more difficult to see why Delta flight attendants would pay any heed to these efforts – not least in view of the failures of flight attendant unions to secure new labor deals with any major carriers.
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) union, which represents around 27,000 American Airlines flight attendants, will no doubt also be infuriated by this news as they enter another set of fruitless mediated talks with American Airlines management. This follows two already unsuccessful attempts to enact strike action without the National Mediation Board’s (NMB’s) permission.
APFA provided an update on April 15 to once again signal that no progress has been made between union and carrier in the last talks. Negotiations are scheduled to continue next week on April 29, and then again on May 6 and 13, with the union claiming “The ball is squarely in the company’s court, and the pressure is on.”
Meanwhile, Delta’s non-union workers continue to prosper together with the US’ leading airline.