Since 2020, more than 30,000 United Airlines flight attendants have been working without a pay raise, some of them picketing airports, voting down earlier deals and returning to the negotiating table to push for something that felt fair after years of sacrifice during the pandemic and the airline’s recovery. That wait is now close to ending. United Airlines and the Association of Flight Attendants announced a tentative agreement that, if ratified by the membership, will deliver immediate raises upon approval, top hourly wages that will reach 100 dollars by the end of the five-year contract, boarding pay for the time spent helping passengers settle in before departure, new compensation for long gaps between flights, and a shared bonus pool worth 740 million dollars to be distributed among all flight attendants. The deal would make United’s cabin crew the highest-paid in the American aviation industry.
The road to this agreement was not smooth. The union rejected an earlier proposal by a wide margin, with 71 percent of voting members turning it down after deciding the offer did not go far enough to recognize what they had contributed during the airline’s lean years. Both sides returned to federal mediation and spent months working through the remaining sticking points, ultimately landing on terms the union says address the key issues its members cared about most: base pay, scheduling protections and compensation for parts of the job that were previously unpaid. The deal still requires approval from the union’s executive council and a ratification vote from the full membership before any of its terms take effect. United becomes the last of the major American carriers to reach a post-pandemic labor agreement with its flight attendants, capping a wave of labor negotiations across the airline industry that has reshaped compensation for workers at nearly every major carrier.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/26/united-airlines-flight-attendants-labor-deal.html
