United Airlines and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) reached a tentative agreement on a new contract today. The tentative agreement comes after years of negotiations between the airline and the union, which represents more than 28,000 United flight attendants.
United Flight Attendants Receive “Industry Leading” Deal
While we’ll have to wait a few days for the full details, initial reports indicate that United and the AFA-CWA have reached an industry leading agreement. This has been a long time coming for the union as negotiations have been dragging on for years.
Last year, flight attendants voted to authorize a strike if an agreement couldn’t be reached and, earlier this month, flight attendants protested at the airline’s Polaris reveal in New York. United Airlines flight attendants have not gotten a raise since 2020.
According to a statement released by the AFA-CWA, the new agreement includes:
- Industry-leading compensation
- Hotel, scheduling, reserve and other improvements
- In the first year alone, Flight Attendants will gain 40% of total economic improvements
- Plus, industry-leading retro pay
The locally elected leaders of the AFA-CWA will meet May 29th and 30th to review the full details of the agreement before voting to send it to the members for ratification. According to the union, no further details of the tentative agreement will be released until the leadership concludes their review.
By all accounts this tentative agreement should be well received by United’s flight attendants. Both sides have to have fatigue from fighting this out for years and I hope they were able to reach an equitable agreement.
Summary
While I’ll reserve final judgements on the agreement until I’ve seen all the details, this is without a doubt a major win for United flight attendants. They have been working under an amendable contract since 2020 and have seen multiple airlines reach new agreements with their flight attendants during that time.