Delta Peers Receive 25% Pay Increase as United Flight Attendants Still Wait for Raise

This month, Delta Air Lines said it would move forward with a 4% pay increase for ground employees and flight attendants effective from June 1, 2025. This is the fourth consecutive pay increase for Delta flight attendants since the Covid-19 pandemic and signifies a 25% wage uplift since 2022. The carrier first announced the pay bump back in January when CEO Ed Bastian predicted “the best financial year” in the company’s history. Concerns about tariffs and international trade have since undermined this sunny outlook, however Delta is intent on implementing the raise as promised.  

Delta’s pay increase announcement received a positive reception amongst non-unionized employees and the media. However, unionized employees – pilots and dispatchers – may have felt left out with terms specifying that they were not eligible for the compensation given their pay is governed by a labor agreement. To clarify, Delta pilots and dispatchers, along with flight attendants at unionized airlines have opted to forgo regular wage increases in exchange for the supposed benefit of collective bargaining and the ability to strike. While this may seem like a fair trade-off, the reality on the ground is very different.  

Delta pilots are excluded from the pay increase because their wages are governed by a labor agreement

Flight attendants’ contract negotiations are highly regulated under the Railway Labor Act which deems their work as critical to the economy and tightly proscribes their ability to strike. Before they can stage a walkout, the National Mediation Board (NMB), an independent agency, needs to decide that negotiations have reached an “impasse” and release both parties into a 30-day “cooling off period.” Only after this period has lapsed, are unionized flight attendants able to strike and even then, the White House can still intervene.  

Furthermore, the only way in which unionized flight attendants can receive wage increases is through unwieldy and drawn-out negotiations that go in circles for years before a new deal is finally agreed. Even then, the new wage is only industry leading for a very brief moment in time before it’s leapfrogged by, Delta which increases flight attendant pay every single year.  

Following Delta’s investment in its workforce, pro-union campaigners are arguing that cabin crew at American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines still earn more than their Delta counterparts. This is a half-hearted attempt to undercut Delta management because unions know that annual wage increases are never going to feature in their members’ contracts. Beyond this, the pay comparisons have completely failed to take account of Delta’s leading compensation package, including annual salary adjustments, an industry-leading profit-sharing formula, and boarding pay. Let’s look at each in turn.  

Delta flight attendants have received their fourth consecutive pay rise on top of a 10.4% bonus

Annual salary adjustments  

Delta’s non-union model allows for more regular adjustments because the airline does not rely on labor agreements to govern pay increases. While Delta flight attendants have received annual raises, their peers at United have gone five whole years without a cent more in pay. During this five-year negotiating period, inflation has substantially eroded flight attendants’ purchasing power and yet they are unable to do anything but wait for their union, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), to secure a new contract.  

To reassure United flight attendants, AFA-CWA has promised retrospective pay in the new deal. However, this still relies on them actually securing a contract which is yet to materialise despite years of negotiations, countless strategy teams, and two Presidential administrations. Additionally, a promise that you will receive retro pay at some point in the future does not help flight attendants who are behind on bills or trying to put food on the table for their families.  

In an attempt to counter the positive press around Delta’s pay bump, AFA-CWA cited polling showing that 91% of union members feel under-valued by their company. The remedy for this unhappiness according to unions? Locking members into a long-term contract that tries to plan for every eventuality by spelling out the full details of their work life in binding language. However, this simply does not work, as seen during the pandemic when inflation skyrocketed and subsequently ate into unionized workers’ fixed wages. On top of this, unions were not able to prevent United and American furloughing thousands of flight attendants all the while Delta did not involuntarily relieve a single employee.  

United flight attendants have been on the same pay since 2020 when their contract first became amenable

Industry leading profit-sharing formula  

Delta flight attendants not only accrue annual wage increases, they also receive an annual bonus as part of the airline’s lucrative profit-sharing scheme. This is often conveniently ignored by airline unions when comparing unionized and non-unionized pay because “it’s not guaranteed.” However, the scheme is hardly uncertain as it has been running continuously for over a decade, even during the pandemic years, with Delta paying out a total of $10 billion. This year, Delta flight attendants received a bonus equal to 10.4% of eligible pay, after the airline recorded the highest Q4 profit in its history. In contrast, United flight attendants, who are unionized, only received 5.3% of eligible pay in their annual bonus despite the airline having an equally strong financial year. Why? Because AFA-CWA agreed to a completely illogical scheme that is based on difference in profitability year-on-year rather than overall profit; this means that profit sharing can decrease even as profits grow.  

While the bonus discrepancy is deeply unfair, it points to a wider problem with unions; they cannot be responsive to changing economic circumstances because they are constrained by long-term contracts that never expire, they simply become “amenable”. If United flight attendants were not unionized, the airline could swiftly change the terms of their profit-sharing formula so it fairly benefited cabin crew. However, because United is locked into drawn-out negotiations, the profit-sharing scheme just becomes another bargaining chip that pushes management and workers against each other. In contrast, Delta management has the freedom to look at strong financial results or forecasts and then translate this into flight attendant pay, sowing unity across the entire workforce.  

This graph was shared by AFA-CWA to illustrate that bonuses for United flight attendants is calculated on profitability difference rather than raw profits

Boarding Pay  

When unions look at flight attendant wages, they rarely look at boarding pay. Again, this is because it always puts Delta in the best light while exposing the futility of unions. As a result of not being unionized, the airline was able to avoid lengthy negotiations and unilaterally introduce the compensation back in 2022. It has meant that for the past three years, Delta flight attendants have received 50% of their regular hourly rate while on the ground, with reports showing that many are earning nearly $450 extra per month. The compensation is proving so popular that senior flight attendants are opting for more domestic flights to take advantage of boarding pay.  

In contrast, United flight attendants have still not received boarding pay as AFA-CWA is making an ill-advised push for ‘ground pay’: a concept whereby flight attendants are compensated for every second spent on the ground including delays and briefings. This concept has never been introduced at a US airline.  

Nor are United staff the only flight attendants still waiting for boarding pay; Spirit Airlines crew failed to secure pay for time at the terminal in their new contract as well.  

Even when boarding pay is secured in union negotiations, it is often only after years of talks and in trade off for something else that management wants. For instance, when the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) agreed to a new contract on behalf of American Airlines flight attendants, they conveniently forgot to mention that boarding pay was secured in exchange for conceding to lower hourly wages.  

Delta flight attendants have received boarding pay since 2022

Overall, annual wage increases serve as a regular reminder that unionized airlines do not have it all; in fact, members are completely beholden to union leadership and their negotiating abilities. Everything rests on the contract, with discussions typically lasting years and the end result still often being disappointing. This is because fixed contracts cannot keep up with changing times, as seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. While AFA-CWA and APFA may never agree with Delta, they have to admit that flight attendants at Delta are doing far better than their peers at unionized airlines because they receive annual adjustment in pay that gives them the stability of predictable compensation, all the while still receiving a generous annual bonus and boarding pay.