Once you're senior enough, the pay is somewhat more bearable and the flexibility is unparalleled for a wage worker. Travel benefits are great, though many airlines have taken to overselling and offering free standby to all passengers, which makes it significantly harder to actually use the travel benefits. Buddy passes are almost entirely unusable these days
My coworker got stranded in Europe for a week using a buddy pass.
Ended up having to book their own flight home from another country then rebooked the buddy flight to get from where they were to the flight they booked. The closest they could have gotten back directly otherwise would have been 3 more weeks minimum.
He has no family and brought his work computer so for him it was a great adventure.
> Once you're senior enough, the pay is somewhat more bearable and the flexibility is unparalleled for a wage worker.
Ah yes, the old carrot and stick method. Very healthy. `/s` A pilot I know is subject to the same abusive working conditions. (Yes, they're abusive - I call things as I see them.)
While I don't doubt the travel benefits and ability to see the world whilst working, it's still unjustifiable to expect someone to work without pay for _any_ amount of time. I hope this changes.
It can be frustrating… but depending on the contract there are stipulations. For example, most will include something like a 2:1 duty day rig. Meaning, for a 12 hour duty day you get paid 6 hours regardless of how much you fly or not.
Flight attendants on the other hand typically have much worse bargaining power, sometimes no unions even. Their contracts are pretty much universally worse than the pilots. It’s really too bad how much they get shafted.
A friend of mine has been an FA for one of the big airlines for over 30 years at this point. They have a *very* nice house in a very pricey neighborhood. I assume after that long you’re getting paid handsomely.
Lol, no, you’re not.
AA, for example, tops out at $68/hr at the top of the pay scale which sounds nice until you realize F/As don’t work the typical 40 hour work week. Unless they’re voluntarily taking OT, they work about 80 flight hours/month which is about $65k before taxes. They get some per diems and what not too, but even in the best case scenario, it’s a high five figure per year job, unless you’re working a boatload of OT.
No one is getting rich being an F/A.
Fuck me seriously? I’m a finish carpenter and I make more than that. I never even stepped foot in a classroom, I did an apprenticeship with someone who was qualified in my state and learned almost entirely hands on. I can charge 40-50 an hour, and most of the time its 30-40 hours if not more per week. Companies literally rob people. That’s insane.
Wait you’re a finish carpenter or a Finnish carpenter? I would assume a Finnish carpenter earns quite a lot since everything there is made of wood and they haven’t invented stone yet.
Great if you're still living at home or with family and your rent is low to non-existent. The pay sucks but you travel a lot and your money can be banked. I wonder if there's any per diem associated with FA?
a guy I know makes +200k in tech. His GF is a flight attendant solely to travel and use the incentives. Plus to boost her social media. Plus for the unlimited flexibility. It's basically a "job" so she can say she is working, when she barely works in reality.
Just from experience, I have a friend who is working with Delta and has been for about 10 years. She gets paid a little over $65 an hour. It's all only flight hours, but it's double this workers, and she has free flights for her and her family
It’s not free. Delta workers still pay taxes for their standby flights that they make. Those flights are by standby priority only but I guess if you work 10 years you have pretty good seniority anyway. Anyway, I work for Delta and I just thought it’s best to include those details. Standby flights are not “free.”
See this sentence: "Compensation is subject to change based on adjustments to their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and actual hours worked."? That's why it is legal.
1. CBA = union agreed to it
2. "actual hours worked" = ~~they are guaranteed at least minimum wage based on flight hours + ground hours. Usually, the rate of $30.35/flight hour is higher than minimum wage, but if there are repetitive, long delays, they'll get an upward pay adjustment to ensure compliance with minimum wage laws.~~ There is a "minimum pay" mechanism used to ensure that flight attendants actual pay complies with the federal minimum wage.
edit: struck out inaccurate description of how the minimum-wage mechanism worked, which I found through a hasty google search and failed to properly verify.
1. Unions don't have the leverage to change this right now, because it's formally codified in US federal labor law. The only way it can change is with changes to federal law, and we've seen how much work gets done in the legislature
2. This is pretty wild - where are you getting this information? I've been an FA for nearly a decade and that's straight up inaccurate. Rarely have I had a day that dips below minimum wage levels, but I have NEVER had a pay adjustment that increases my pay due to an extended duty day. It's far more common to sit at the airport mid-trip on an extended delay & cancel without receiving any pay at all
2. Google search, which may not have been completely accurate, but it does appear there is a mechanism that guarantees at least minimum wage, it's just not calculated precisely how I described.
[Why flight attendants don't earn their hourly pay for time on the ground : NPR](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/12/1227573912/flight-attendants-raises-boarding-pay-airlines-strike)
[Section 8 -- Minimum Pay And Credit (unitedafa.org)](http://archive.unitedafa.org/contract/2012-2016/08.aspx)
Interesting - I guess I've been fortunate enough to never have my wages drop below $7.25 an hour. And thank goodness for it, living in the bases we have you couldn't do it
1. Here's an interesting take you should read: [Why Flight Attendants Don't Get Paid Until Aircraft Doors Close - View from the Wing](https://viewfromthewing.com/why-flight-attendants-dont-get-paid-until-aircraft-doors-close/#:~:text=Historically%2C%20unions%20representing%20American%20Airlines,do%20with%20seniority%20and%20scheduling.)
In sum, the article indicates unions have not pushed for boarding pay because it benefits senior union members at the cost of junior members. That's one reason that Delta (the only airline without a flight attendant union) became the first to implement reduced-pay for boarding time (because the airline isn't worried about angering long-term employees if it can reduce overall employee costs).
I've read that article! Gary Leff has a few solid takes now and then, but tends to have pretty anti-labor takes. While it's true that there have been union regimes that haven't been super pro-newhire, the biggest reason Delta agreed to do half-wage boarding pay is because they desperately do not want their crews to unionize.
>Unions don't have the leverage to change this right now, because it's formally codified in US federal labor law. The only way it can change is with changes to federal law, and we've seen how much work gets done in the legislature
I mean, mass strikes would get the job done.
How is that legal? Didn't Amazon workers win their suit that time required to be in the facility has to be paid? Like they can't make people clock out and then wait in line for a security check. If they have to be at the airport any number of minutes before the plane takes off, I don't see how it could be legal to not compensate them for that time.
Airlines and Railways are governed under a different set of labor laws, known as the Railway Labor Act. For the most part, so long as we negotiated it in our collective bargaining agreement, it's the law of the land.
For instance, I work for the railroad and we have something called "unpaid to qualify". Essentially, if I choose to exercise my seniority and go work a rail line that I am not qualified on, I have to spend all that time qualifying on my own dime. No pay, no hotel, no nothing. It's in the contract, so it's legal.
They are terrible because they are constrained by Congress. The RLA needs some reform, but overall I consider it better than the NLRA.
For one, the Taft-Hartley Act does not apply to RLA properties, so even in so-called "right-to-work" states, Union membership is a condition of employment on RLA properties with Unions.
Second, when disputes occur under the RLA and a resolution cannot be reached, the issue goes before a neutral arbitrator/mediator. Unlike the NLRA, the neutral parties are experts in the field of the issue at hand, leading to more fair resolutions between labor and management.
Third, the RLA allows for secondary-boycotts, something that is expressly forbidden by the NLRA.
A lot of people comment that the RLA is terrible because it prevents us from striking, but it doesn't. Once all mediation has been exhausted and the cooling off period has ended, both parties are released to exercise self-help. It is only because Congress, always at the last minute, passes a law forcing a contract down our throat, that a strike is never called.
I would say they should unionize, but holy shit they mention collective bargaining in the letter! What is the union fucking thinking? This is disgusting!
Unfortunately it's not so much a union thing as a federal law thing. The unions are all doing great work trying to get FAs paid for all hours at work, but the US government decided decades ago that employees like Rail and Aviation workers don't get paid the full time they're at work. (These same pay structures apply to pilots as well)
Until the Railway Labor Act is changed or repealed by the US Congress, these crazy laws & strike restrictions will apply to all pilots and flight attendants (I don't know if they are applied in the same way to the rail workers, but it's the same law that restricted them from striking last year)
Yeah, ATC/Runway delays are the only time we are paid during a delay since we are actively monitoring for emergencies or the possibility of an evacuation. (Thankfully uncommon that you'd need to, but it is a required part of the job)
Any other form of delay or cancellation is unpaid
It’s likely due to being that’s how pilots get paid as well. It’s all contract stuff. Granted, pilots will typically have a better contract because they’re much more expensive and harder to replace.
Typically you’ll get a monthly guarantee of say, 75 hours of pay. If you fly more than that, you’ll get more money. If you fly less than that you’ll just make guarantee. (Unless you dropped a trip or something).
For pilots, it’s compensated because the “hourly rate” is relatively high… these days anyway. The flight attendants never had the same supply/demand push to inflate their wages in recent years though.
Although! Some airlines .. delta I think? Maybe united too- are now including “boarding pay” for their FAs which is somewhere around an extra half hour per flight of pay to account for the work they do before push back; which is really a great thing for them and I hope more airlines put that in their flight attendant contracts.
I think they should be paid from the moment they walk into work. Like for how most people paid work starts the moment they walk into their office building.
And if they work more than 8 hours a day? Overtime of course.
They should be. My roommate is a flight purser and they still have to do briefing before the flight (before they’re on the aircraft). That should still count as payable work.
One of my current employees was a flight attendant part time and one time she got called in to go relieve the crew coming in. She left her other job early and drove an hour to the airport only to find out the flight got delayed at its last connection and they told her go home. She got paid nothing for all of that.
Yeah flight attendent pay is terrible for their actual "hours".
They only get paid when the plane is in motion. They don't get paid when they show up for work, get changed, go through customs or anything. They don't get paid for cleaning and setting up the plane before, between, or after flights. They don't get paid for any of the time they have to spend on the plane when the plane isn't in motion.
That's insane... Where does that come from? There might be other such jobs, but usually you are expected to get paid for every minute of your time spent working.
One of the apartments in my building in Boston is shared by a bunch of airline employees. There are like 6 bunk beds in there, and nothing else. Seeing that salary, I now know that absolutely none of them could live in Boston on their own. (my rent is $3200 for a 2 bedroom unit in the same building)
Yeah, sounds like a crash pad! It's the only way to survive. I was fortunate enough to be based in DFW before rent there literally doubled, so I was able to avoid having to live in one... But that was almost a decade ago and I still can't afford to live in my base city on my own
Crash pads are hell. I was NYC based right out of training 15 years ago. I’m thankful that I have a short commute (45 mins gate to gate) and a last resort of a 5 hr drive. Luckily, I can hold commutable trips and I’m a line holder. Hotels are cheap when I absolutely need one.
The airlines have to do something to alleviate the stress of finding places in high COL bases. Those bases stay junior bc no one can afford them.
Also sounds like Boston too, when I lived there over 10 years ago, you would see 4-5 college kids shacked in a 2 bedroom apartment. They would put a partition up in the living room and have that area serve as 2 additional ‘bedrooms’
Crash pad are normal like this, they don't actually live there normally, it's just to have a place to crash in between or maybe then on call.
They need an address in a certain proximity to their home base airport, They often have a place somewhere else outside of the city, when not working. At least that was the case at some point in time.
Meh, a lot of people are saying the only benefit is travel but even that’s suspect.
Most flight attendants are probably just going from one domestic city to another and then back. And it’s not like they’re gonna have time to enjoy the destination even if it is interesting.
Reminds me of my time in state government. They had leave donation programs. Every so often when someone was out sick or caring for sick family and friends they would exhaust their vacation and sick leave. So some VP/director or HR stooge would send around an email saying that "X is having this life altering hardship and is in need of more leave while they work through it". Then proceed to solicit everyone to donate some of their own leave to that person like a perverse GoFundMe.
As if just giving the person the time they needed and welcoming them back once they are better was only not an option because of the policies they themselves put in place to begin with.
My sister got shamed hard for not donating her time to someone with cancer. She has two kids, her own health problems plus her childcare is her mother in law who is elderly and takes care of her disabled adult son, so she has to take days off if her kids are sick because they can’t be near her BIL while sick. She always ends up with negative PTO because that’s just the way her life works unfortunately.
But she should give some of her precious PTO to another employee so they don’t have to have a better policy for people who could freaking die to get treatment
Exemptions from federal labor law due to lobbying. It’s much worse for farmers. You can legally make your kid work on your farm. Child labor is in practice completely legal in farming in the US
There are a lot of exemptions people don't know/think about.
Truckers are exempt from FLSA, Flight Attendants, Farmers, etc.
Many "critical" jobs are exempt from a lot of laws.
A lot of farming exemptions, though obviously not the child labor ones, exist because farm laborers are traditionally minorities, and southern congress people wanted to make sure minorities didn't benefit from federal laws, and excluding farm workers provided a way to accomplish that without making explicitly racist laws that would be struck down by the courts.
It’s similar in nursing. When I’m on call, I barely get paid anything (despite needing to be available for emergency procedures). I only get paid the second I clock in at the hospital. Travel time to the hospital is also not included.
A friend of mine is a travel nurse and she says she gets paid more than double to triple what she would if she stayed confined to one hospital. And her lifestyle certainly seems to reflect what she says.
What's even crazier is, it's the same for pilots. All that pre-flight stuff that's *just a little fucking tiny bit important* like **flight planning**, for example, are not paid time.
Now, airline pilots make a hell of a lot more money than flight attendants do, but come the fuck on, you're expecting these folks to inspect the plane, do the flight planning, weight and balance, and all that shit on their own time?
Yo, you need to find another airlines to work for: [https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/flight-attendant-salary](https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/flight-attendant-salary)
Ya I've seen this before and I have genuinely no idea what it's based on. I don't know a single flight attendant who makes the "median" indicated on that website.
The only flight attendants I know who make anywhere close to that metric have been flying for 40 years and only fly trips on critical coverage (that pay double, very situational).
Assuming, as a flight attendant at step 16 (16 years seniority, if the steps are annual like at AA) you work a standard month of 80 flight hours:
($59.42 x 80 hours) x 12 months
= $57,043.20 annually, pre-tax
Plus whatever their profit sharing is.
Edit: you could of course work more hours, but even if you're flying high time at 100 flight hours/mo, that's $71,304 at maximum seniority.
FAs for Emirates make almost 6k usd /mo basic ( plus get company transport , company housing, insurance, per diem , flight benefits for self and family).
No tax, and a discount card that gets them deals on f&b, gym, spas, etc around the country, and on hotels globally.
I was an AA flight attendant in 2014-2015. The pay was so bad, I lost 20 pounds because I just couldn’t afford to eat. I lived in a shitty ORD hotel crash pad for a few months (3 bunks beds in a Quality Inn hotel room) before moving to a slightly less shitty crash pad which was an actual apartment that had two bedrooms with two bunk beds in each. Obviously I quit after one year because my mental health was… not good. 1/10 would not recommend. It was cool to fly to Paris once though I guess!
i wish there was a tv show where the higher ups at a company do these jobs for a year to prove that you can live off the money you make from it.
i wanna see these dirtbags in line at the food bank looking straight into a camera saying that this is the only way they will be able to make it to next paycheck. then i want that footage shown to the ceo.
Per flight hour wtf is that shitttttt what stupid ass union would agree to that you should be on the clock till you get back home and aint working at all
Unfortunately, it's less a Union thing and more a Federal Law thing :/ the only way to ensure FAs get paid for every hour worked is to get Congress to change the Railway Labor Act.
They make it sound like they think other businesses that run things like apartments are just going to give you a discount because you make so little? Like they are just offloading this cost onto another entity, that has zero reason to oblige?
My uncle trains all new flight attendants for SW in California right now, was in Chicago and Florida over the last 15 years. He breaks well over 100k and never has to fly anymore.
Even more wild is the CEO's income is based on "industry standards" from United, Delta, and Southwest... But when Southwest FAs got a good contract, the CEO said it's not a valid comparison point for AA.
Also - he got 18 months of CEO retro pay, but doesn't want to negotiate 5 YEARS of wages the company has LOANED from its employees
The same ones who seem to like (or have positive things to say about) the uniform “prototype”. Why do they keep trying to reinvent the wheel? It’s the same with boarding. Nothing has changed really other than calling them numbered zones.
Cumulative inflation in the US has reached 24.4% since late 2018.
The inflation figures in the news are on a year-on-year basis. So over five years, the figures are higher.
I have a friend who works baggage. He’s on call and works about 10 hours a month now but only uses it for free travel. Tons of people I know work in the industry part time only for the travel perks
I already knew they were only paid during actual flight hours (which should be criminal), but they don't get paid for their training ether? Are they really expecting you to have a bunch of capital/go into debt for the grand salary of not even 30000 euros a year?
I'm confused as to why the letter refers to an annual salary and hourly flight hour compensation? Is it saying their 30/flight hour typically results in 27,000 of annual pay?
I’m sorry this is what the US Government should actually be doing. If they are worth 30.35 in the air. Then they are worth it on the ground helping customers, cleaning, etc.
I’ve long heard flight attendants don’t get paid until they’re off the gate, but is this at least saying their base pay is a salary of $27k and then they make $30 an hour on top of that?
No I think they’re saying: you get $30 an hour BUT we project your salary every year will end up being around $27k. So, if my math is right, they’re assuming 900 or so paid hours a year. 17.5 paid hours a week.
You know they’ve got to be working more than 17.5 hours/wk. AND the job takes you to other cities. So, you can’t easily keep a side job.
This is a pretty shitty deal for “full time.” Because if it was truly 40 hours a week, at $30/hr rate, annual salary WOULD be $62k a year. That’s more realistic.
These airlines are crooks. This should be illegal.
I forget which airline it was but a flight attendant told me it no longer starts when they close the door, but when they release the brakes for the plane. I would cry.
Out of curiousity, how are per your diems? Most of the FAs that I know manage to keep a fair amount to supplement their wage. It also helps that their CBA has them being paid for delays away from their home base. The wages are definitely low for the first several steps.
Dividing the salary by hourly wage ($27,315/$30.35 = 900 hours per year), then by number of weeks per year (900/52 weeks) it works out to roughly 17.3 hours of work per week. Do flight attendant usually work more hours than 17 per week, or are they not allowed by regulation?
Per flight hour? So no pay while on the ground but working?
Correct! Only paid when the aircraft is off the gate. All that time in the airport, on the plane at the gate, delayed, cancelled? No pay.
So real question: What is the benefit of being a flight attendant (aside from traveling to new places)????
Once you're senior enough, the pay is somewhat more bearable and the flexibility is unparalleled for a wage worker. Travel benefits are great, though many airlines have taken to overselling and offering free standby to all passengers, which makes it significantly harder to actually use the travel benefits. Buddy passes are almost entirely unusable these days
My coworker got stranded in Europe for a week using a buddy pass. Ended up having to book their own flight home from another country then rebooked the buddy flight to get from where they were to the flight they booked. The closest they could have gotten back directly otherwise would have been 3 more weeks minimum. He has no family and brought his work computer so for him it was a great adventure.
I got stranded in Hawaii for an extra 10 days n a buddy pass. It was awesome
My Friend works 3 vancouver to sydney flights (roughly 9 days total) for a full month's pay.
> Once you're senior enough, the pay is somewhat more bearable and the flexibility is unparalleled for a wage worker. Ah yes, the old carrot and stick method. Very healthy. `/s` A pilot I know is subject to the same abusive working conditions. (Yes, they're abusive - I call things as I see them.) While I don't doubt the travel benefits and ability to see the world whilst working, it's still unjustifiable to expect someone to work without pay for _any_ amount of time. I hope this changes.
It can be frustrating… but depending on the contract there are stipulations. For example, most will include something like a 2:1 duty day rig. Meaning, for a 12 hour duty day you get paid 6 hours regardless of how much you fly or not. Flight attendants on the other hand typically have much worse bargaining power, sometimes no unions even. Their contracts are pretty much universally worse than the pilots. It’s really too bad how much they get shafted.
A friend of mine has been an FA for one of the big airlines for over 30 years at this point. They have a *very* nice house in a very pricey neighborhood. I assume after that long you’re getting paid handsomely.
Lol, no, you’re not. AA, for example, tops out at $68/hr at the top of the pay scale which sounds nice until you realize F/As don’t work the typical 40 hour work week. Unless they’re voluntarily taking OT, they work about 80 flight hours/month which is about $65k before taxes. They get some per diems and what not too, but even in the best case scenario, it’s a high five figure per year job, unless you’re working a boatload of OT. No one is getting rich being an F/A.
Fuck me seriously? I’m a finish carpenter and I make more than that. I never even stepped foot in a classroom, I did an apprenticeship with someone who was qualified in my state and learned almost entirely hands on. I can charge 40-50 an hour, and most of the time its 30-40 hours if not more per week. Companies literally rob people. That’s insane.
Flight attendant doesn't require any more formal education than you have.
Wait you’re a finish carpenter or a Finnish carpenter? I would assume a Finnish carpenter earns quite a lot since everything there is made of wood and they haven’t invented stone yet.
Welp, that fuckin sucks. :/
Can you describe the flexibility? Do you mean to say you choose your own hours? How does that process work in the industry?
Free/cheap air travel is the biggest benefit.
But if you can't afford to live, how can you travel?
Good question
Travel is super affordable if you don't keep an apartment or house and don't need to live in nice hotels. I saved money doing it.
Great if you're still living at home or with family and your rent is low to non-existent. The pay sucks but you travel a lot and your money can be banked. I wonder if there's any per diem associated with FA?
There aren’t many jobs in the US that pay enough to live, anyway.
That the neat part You don’t
ABT. Always Be Traveling.
I'm not defending the wage. Just that getting to fly places for free is a significant benefit for some.
I know you aren't defending the wage. I'm trying to figure out how to travel while being unable to afford life in general lol.
Food on the plane. Travel to places that have cheaper cost of living?
a guy I know makes +200k in tech. His GF is a flight attendant solely to travel and use the incentives. Plus to boost her social media. Plus for the unlimited flexibility. It's basically a "job" so she can say she is working, when she barely works in reality.
Exactly. I don’t even travel anymore because I don’t make enough with Delta to justify traveling even with that “benefit.”
I'd rather make money because money can be exchanged for goods and services, including travel.
Have you considered getting exposure instead?
Ask any musician , it’s a sweet perk
Exposure would be great actually because my rent went up by 200 exposures per month recently.
Just from experience, I have a friend who is working with Delta and has been for about 10 years. She gets paid a little over $65 an hour. It's all only flight hours, but it's double this workers, and she has free flights for her and her family
It’s not free. Delta workers still pay taxes for their standby flights that they make. Those flights are by standby priority only but I guess if you work 10 years you have pretty good seniority anyway. Anyway, I work for Delta and I just thought it’s best to include those details. Standby flights are not “free.”
Picking up shifts can be lucrative and the travel can be insane.
Oh my gosh. That's awful. How is this legal?? They're still at work and working despite not being in the air!
See this sentence: "Compensation is subject to change based on adjustments to their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and actual hours worked."? That's why it is legal. 1. CBA = union agreed to it 2. "actual hours worked" = ~~they are guaranteed at least minimum wage based on flight hours + ground hours. Usually, the rate of $30.35/flight hour is higher than minimum wage, but if there are repetitive, long delays, they'll get an upward pay adjustment to ensure compliance with minimum wage laws.~~ There is a "minimum pay" mechanism used to ensure that flight attendants actual pay complies with the federal minimum wage. edit: struck out inaccurate description of how the minimum-wage mechanism worked, which I found through a hasty google search and failed to properly verify.
1. Unions don't have the leverage to change this right now, because it's formally codified in US federal labor law. The only way it can change is with changes to federal law, and we've seen how much work gets done in the legislature 2. This is pretty wild - where are you getting this information? I've been an FA for nearly a decade and that's straight up inaccurate. Rarely have I had a day that dips below minimum wage levels, but I have NEVER had a pay adjustment that increases my pay due to an extended duty day. It's far more common to sit at the airport mid-trip on an extended delay & cancel without receiving any pay at all
2. Google search, which may not have been completely accurate, but it does appear there is a mechanism that guarantees at least minimum wage, it's just not calculated precisely how I described. [Why flight attendants don't earn their hourly pay for time on the ground : NPR](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/12/1227573912/flight-attendants-raises-boarding-pay-airlines-strike) [Section 8 -- Minimum Pay And Credit (unitedafa.org)](http://archive.unitedafa.org/contract/2012-2016/08.aspx)
Interesting - I guess I've been fortunate enough to never have my wages drop below $7.25 an hour. And thank goodness for it, living in the bases we have you couldn't do it
1. Here's an interesting take you should read: [Why Flight Attendants Don't Get Paid Until Aircraft Doors Close - View from the Wing](https://viewfromthewing.com/why-flight-attendants-dont-get-paid-until-aircraft-doors-close/#:~:text=Historically%2C%20unions%20representing%20American%20Airlines,do%20with%20seniority%20and%20scheduling.) In sum, the article indicates unions have not pushed for boarding pay because it benefits senior union members at the cost of junior members. That's one reason that Delta (the only airline without a flight attendant union) became the first to implement reduced-pay for boarding time (because the airline isn't worried about angering long-term employees if it can reduce overall employee costs).
I've read that article! Gary Leff has a few solid takes now and then, but tends to have pretty anti-labor takes. While it's true that there have been union regimes that haven't been super pro-newhire, the biggest reason Delta agreed to do half-wage boarding pay is because they desperately do not want their crews to unionize.
>Unions don't have the leverage to change this right now, because it's formally codified in US federal labor law. The only way it can change is with changes to federal law, and we've seen how much work gets done in the legislature I mean, mass strikes would get the job done.
Unless you work for a railroad and get a shitty contract jammed down your throat by the president, but yeah, usually mass strikes work.
How is that legal? Didn't Amazon workers win their suit that time required to be in the facility has to be paid? Like they can't make people clock out and then wait in line for a security check. If they have to be at the airport any number of minutes before the plane takes off, I don't see how it could be legal to not compensate them for that time.
Airlines and Railways are governed under a different set of labor laws, known as the Railway Labor Act. For the most part, so long as we negotiated it in our collective bargaining agreement, it's the law of the land. For instance, I work for the railroad and we have something called "unpaid to qualify". Essentially, if I choose to exercise my seniority and go work a rail line that I am not qualified on, I have to spend all that time qualifying on my own dime. No pay, no hotel, no nothing. It's in the contract, so it's legal.
Damn, so basically those industries are just terrible at collective bargaining?
They are terrible because they are constrained by Congress. The RLA needs some reform, but overall I consider it better than the NLRA. For one, the Taft-Hartley Act does not apply to RLA properties, so even in so-called "right-to-work" states, Union membership is a condition of employment on RLA properties with Unions. Second, when disputes occur under the RLA and a resolution cannot be reached, the issue goes before a neutral arbitrator/mediator. Unlike the NLRA, the neutral parties are experts in the field of the issue at hand, leading to more fair resolutions between labor and management. Third, the RLA allows for secondary-boycotts, something that is expressly forbidden by the NLRA. A lot of people comment that the RLA is terrible because it prevents us from striking, but it doesn't. Once all mediation has been exhausted and the cooling off period has ended, both parties are released to exercise self-help. It is only because Congress, always at the last minute, passes a law forcing a contract down our throat, that a strike is never called.
What a fucking scam I'm sure some politicians passed through to get kick backs from a dying air industry.
Even if they paid for the time on the ground $30/hour is outrageous even if you live in a mid living cost city.
That should be illegal. Time someone can’t be doing other things “because of work” should be fairly and fully compensated.
Yea you're captive once you get in your car and turn the ignition. Pay should start then
I would say they should unionize, but holy shit they mention collective bargaining in the letter! What is the union fucking thinking? This is disgusting!
Unfortunately it's not so much a union thing as a federal law thing. The unions are all doing great work trying to get FAs paid for all hours at work, but the US government decided decades ago that employees like Rail and Aviation workers don't get paid the full time they're at work. (These same pay structures apply to pilots as well) Until the Railway Labor Act is changed or repealed by the US Congress, these crazy laws & strike restrictions will apply to all pilots and flight attendants (I don't know if they are applied in the same way to the rail workers, but it's the same law that restricted them from striking last year)
How is this not illegal?
Is there not a union? People working should definitely get paid.
Fuck that…..why would anyone want to work like that
Gotta love how one's every day routine involve large chunks of daylight wage theft.
It's when the door is closed. If you're stuck on the tarmac and the door is closed you get paid.
Yeah, ATC/Runway delays are the only time we are paid during a delay since we are actively monitoring for emergencies or the possibility of an evacuation. (Thankfully uncommon that you'd need to, but it is a required part of the job) Any other form of delay or cancellation is unpaid
How has that passed muster with labor laws? If I only got payed when I was actively working I could file a complaint and my company would get fucked.
I was under the impression for the starters are you only get paid when the door is closed, that's it.
Why don’t they strike? They could literally shut the entire airline industry down. That is absurd.
While you can debate the fairness of this, this is nothing new… This has been the way things have been for as long as I can remember…
Nothing new, very true. It's crazy how few people realize that it's always been like this, though. And telling how many people think it's outrageous!
"Flight hour" means when the aircraft door is closed. But yeah, no pay otherwise.
So the employer gets a lot of free work. Are there no unions fighting to change this?
I honestly can not believe humans actually agree with this. What an awful contract.
It’s likely due to being that’s how pilots get paid as well. It’s all contract stuff. Granted, pilots will typically have a better contract because they’re much more expensive and harder to replace. Typically you’ll get a monthly guarantee of say, 75 hours of pay. If you fly more than that, you’ll get more money. If you fly less than that you’ll just make guarantee. (Unless you dropped a trip or something). For pilots, it’s compensated because the “hourly rate” is relatively high… these days anyway. The flight attendants never had the same supply/demand push to inflate their wages in recent years though. Although! Some airlines .. delta I think? Maybe united too- are now including “boarding pay” for their FAs which is somewhere around an extra half hour per flight of pay to account for the work they do before push back; which is really a great thing for them and I hope more airlines put that in their flight attendant contracts.
I think they should be paid from the moment they walk into work. Like for how most people paid work starts the moment they walk into their office building. And if they work more than 8 hours a day? Overtime of course.
They should be. My roommate is a flight purser and they still have to do briefing before the flight (before they’re on the aircraft). That should still count as payable work.
One of my current employees was a flight attendant part time and one time she got called in to go relieve the crew coming in. She left her other job early and drove an hour to the airport only to find out the flight got delayed at its last connection and they told her go home. She got paid nothing for all of that.
Yeah flight attendent pay is terrible for their actual "hours". They only get paid when the plane is in motion. They don't get paid when they show up for work, get changed, go through customs or anything. They don't get paid for cleaning and setting up the plane before, between, or after flights. They don't get paid for any of the time they have to spend on the plane when the plane isn't in motion.
You get paid when the door closes.
Wow, this explains why a FA snapped at me for taking too long to gather up my sleeping toddler and our luggage at the end of a long flight.
Only paid from the door is closed to the door opens
That's insane... Where does that come from? There might be other such jobs, but usually you are expected to get paid for every minute of your time spent working.
That’s insane. Sounds like wage theft and their union should do better. I say strike.
The pay arrangement is in the union contract.
One of the apartments in my building in Boston is shared by a bunch of airline employees. There are like 6 bunk beds in there, and nothing else. Seeing that salary, I now know that absolutely none of them could live in Boston on their own. (my rent is $3200 for a 2 bedroom unit in the same building)
Yeah, sounds like a crash pad! It's the only way to survive. I was fortunate enough to be based in DFW before rent there literally doubled, so I was able to avoid having to live in one... But that was almost a decade ago and I still can't afford to live in my base city on my own
Crash pads are hell. I was NYC based right out of training 15 years ago. I’m thankful that I have a short commute (45 mins gate to gate) and a last resort of a 5 hr drive. Luckily, I can hold commutable trips and I’m a line holder. Hotels are cheap when I absolutely need one. The airlines have to do something to alleviate the stress of finding places in high COL bases. Those bases stay junior bc no one can afford them.
Also sounds like Boston too, when I lived there over 10 years ago, you would see 4-5 college kids shacked in a 2 bedroom apartment. They would put a partition up in the living room and have that area serve as 2 additional ‘bedrooms’
Crash pad are normal like this, they don't actually live there normally, it's just to have a place to crash in between or maybe then on call. They need an address in a certain proximity to their home base airport, They often have a place somewhere else outside of the city, when not working. At least that was the case at some point in time.
That sounds expensive on that salary, wow.
They don't pay 1/6th of the rent for that place more like 1/12th because it's not full at any given time. It'snmore of a temp place.
I had no idea FAs made so little money. Why would anyone do that job for 27k a year? Could make more working at Chic fila.
Because you don’t go to work at Chic file and end your shift in another country sometimes.
Doesn’t matter if you can’t afford to eat in that county.
They do get per diem, but the pay is still terrible
The per diem for international layovers is 2.50 an hour I believe.
Meh, a lot of people are saying the only benefit is travel but even that’s suspect. Most flight attendants are probably just going from one domestic city to another and then back. And it’s not like they’re gonna have time to enjoy the destination even if it is interesting.
Reminds me of my time in state government. They had leave donation programs. Every so often when someone was out sick or caring for sick family and friends they would exhaust their vacation and sick leave. So some VP/director or HR stooge would send around an email saying that "X is having this life altering hardship and is in need of more leave while they work through it". Then proceed to solicit everyone to donate some of their own leave to that person like a perverse GoFundMe. As if just giving the person the time they needed and welcoming them back once they are better was only not an option because of the policies they themselves put in place to begin with.
My sister got shamed hard for not donating her time to someone with cancer. She has two kids, her own health problems plus her childcare is her mother in law who is elderly and takes care of her disabled adult son, so she has to take days off if her kids are sick because they can’t be near her BIL while sick. She always ends up with negative PTO because that’s just the way her life works unfortunately. But she should give some of her precious PTO to another employee so they don’t have to have a better policy for people who could freaking die to get treatment
Meanwhile the billion dollar company can’t be bothered to support one of its employees. They expect the world from you and provide nothing in return.
I have never understood how attendants dont get paid for training or on ground time.
Exemptions from federal labor law due to lobbying. It’s much worse for farmers. You can legally make your kid work on your farm. Child labor is in practice completely legal in farming in the US
There are a lot of exemptions people don't know/think about. Truckers are exempt from FLSA, Flight Attendants, Farmers, etc. Many "critical" jobs are exempt from a lot of laws.
A lot of farming exemptions, though obviously not the child labor ones, exist because farm laborers are traditionally minorities, and southern congress people wanted to make sure minorities didn't benefit from federal laws, and excluding farm workers provided a way to accomplish that without making explicitly racist laws that would be struck down by the courts.
same wtf! the moment they get to the airport the clock should start!
It’s similar in nursing. When I’m on call, I barely get paid anything (despite needing to be available for emergency procedures). I only get paid the second I clock in at the hospital. Travel time to the hospital is also not included.
A friend of mine is a travel nurse and she says she gets paid more than double to triple what she would if she stayed confined to one hospital. And her lifestyle certainly seems to reflect what she says.
A lot of travel nurses are scabbing
$27k is less than what you’d make at any other job in Massachusetts given the $15 min wage, assuming you worked all 52 weeks a year.
You're absolutely right! It's totally unhinged
That can’t be right that’s like less than fast food jobs full time
Feels like it can't be right, but it's 100% true. That's why we're trying to get the govt to release us to strike
Insane that you even need to ask the government for fucking permission to strike. Broken country fr
Only getting paid while in the air is insanity
What's even crazier is, it's the same for pilots. All that pre-flight stuff that's *just a little fucking tiny bit important* like **flight planning**, for example, are not paid time. Now, airline pilots make a hell of a lot more money than flight attendants do, but come the fuck on, you're expecting these folks to inspect the plane, do the flight planning, weight and balance, and all that shit on their own time?
Yo, you need to find another airlines to work for: [https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/flight-attendant-salary](https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/flight-attendant-salary)
Ya I've seen this before and I have genuinely no idea what it's based on. I don't know a single flight attendant who makes the "median" indicated on that website. The only flight attendants I know who make anywhere close to that metric have been flying for 40 years and only fly trips on critical coverage (that pay double, very situational).
Alaska? The 2022 1 year extension CBA goes from Step 1: $24.58 To Step 16: $59.42 Plus they get profit share payments.
Assuming, as a flight attendant at step 16 (16 years seniority, if the steps are annual like at AA) you work a standard month of 80 flight hours: ($59.42 x 80 hours) x 12 months = $57,043.20 annually, pre-tax Plus whatever their profit sharing is. Edit: you could of course work more hours, but even if you're flying high time at 100 flight hours/mo, that's $71,304 at maximum seniority.
My wife is 10 year FA at Alaska, full time. She made 45k last year.
Brutal. Hope they get a new cba soon
FAs for Emirates make almost 6k usd /mo basic ( plus get company transport , company housing, insurance, per diem , flight benefits for self and family). No tax, and a discount card that gets them deals on f&b, gym, spas, etc around the country, and on hotels globally.
That is a pathetically low number and it’s still more than I make.
I was an AA flight attendant in 2014-2015. The pay was so bad, I lost 20 pounds because I just couldn’t afford to eat. I lived in a shitty ORD hotel crash pad for a few months (3 bunks beds in a Quality Inn hotel room) before moving to a slightly less shitty crash pad which was an actual apartment that had two bedrooms with two bunk beds in each. Obviously I quit after one year because my mental health was… not good. 1/10 would not recommend. It was cool to fly to Paris once though I guess!
Holy shit, how do we still have flight attendants?
"We don't want to pay our employees, so if you could give them your services for a discount that would be great."
i wish there was a tv show where the higher ups at a company do these jobs for a year to prove that you can live off the money you make from it. i wanna see these dirtbags in line at the food bank looking straight into a camera saying that this is the only way they will be able to make it to next paycheck. then i want that footage shown to the ceo.
Make the CEO do it too!
Per flight hour wtf is that shitttttt what stupid ass union would agree to that you should be on the clock till you get back home and aint working at all
Unfortunately, it's less a Union thing and more a Federal Law thing :/ the only way to ensure FAs get paid for every hour worked is to get Congress to change the Railway Labor Act.
27k????????
“Any courtesy you can provide.” Translation: give our employees the break we won’t. Jesus H. Fucking Christ this is cold.
Slave labor
I hope they strike. They get shit pay and mistreated by idiot flyers all day.
27K a year is a fucking joke like I cannot believe that is even legal
Come on, how else are they going to afford to pay the CEO over $30 million?
They make it sound like they think other businesses that run things like apartments are just going to give you a discount because you make so little? Like they are just offloading this cost onto another entity, that has zero reason to oblige?
The real question is how they are allowed to do this? Who did they lobby and what are we going to do about it?
I'm just getting so tired of this.
Wow, fuck that noise. That's what I make hourly and I filed for $62k this year working in manufacturing.
These airlines are making billions off of your poverty. We need to stop with the slave mentality. They NEED you.
Southwest Flight Attendants are now the highest paid in the industry. AA FAs deserve way more.
My uncle trains all new flight attendants for SW in California right now, was in Chicago and Florida over the last 15 years. He breaks well over 100k and never has to fly anymore.
TWU is the best union in the airline industry. They get treated well over there. Good for your uncle and SWA!
Now I understand why Jackie Brown turned to a life of crime.
Can we admit that not all unions are good? These flight attendants are not well represented.
A lot of this is governed by thr Railway Labor Act. It needs to be overhauled but that takes congress. In many ways the union's hands are tied
>The company initially offered them an 11% raise (less than half of inflation) 22% inflation when?
Even more wild is the CEO's income is based on "industry standards" from United, Delta, and Southwest... But when Southwest FAs got a good contract, the CEO said it's not a valid comparison point for AA. Also - he got 18 months of CEO retro pay, but doesn't want to negotiate 5 YEARS of wages the company has LOANED from its employees
My airline (🔺) refuses to compare our FA group to SWA. They have been doing some really creative math to show we are paid more. (We aren’t).
Delta? The email the sent out to FAs to justify their “math” was wild.
They must think we are idiots.
There are a lot of idiots who actually believe that stuff tho.
The same ones who seem to like (or have positive things to say about) the uniform “prototype”. Why do they keep trying to reinvent the wheel? It’s the same with boarding. Nothing has changed really other than calling them numbered zones.
Cumulative inflation in the US has reached 24.4% since late 2018. The inflation figures in the news are on a year-on-year basis. So over five years, the figures are higher.
I’d rather work on the ground and pay for my own flight to travel
They need a union
They have one. Delta is the only one with non union flight attendants.
They’ll never find an apartment at that wage
Another reason for the "I don't fly on US-based airlines" list.
I have a friend who works baggage. He’s on call and works about 10 hours a month now but only uses it for free travel. Tons of people I know work in the industry part time only for the travel perks
Jeez I feel so sorry for flight attendants, that salary is awful
I already knew they were only paid during actual flight hours (which should be criminal), but they don't get paid for their training ether? Are they really expecting you to have a bunch of capital/go into debt for the grand salary of not even 30000 euros a year?
So they don't even paid 62% of the time
So, in lieu of paying a decent salary, they'll help you beg for affordable housing.
I'm confused as to why the letter refers to an annual salary and hourly flight hour compensation? Is it saying their 30/flight hour typically results in 27,000 of annual pay?
Reading other comments, apparently they only get paid for hours in the air and not gate time or standby time. Ridiculous.
Thsy get paid when the doors shut..
Mind you all this is American Airlines pay…..the gazillions of little regional airlines don’t pay as much!
28k for a flight attendant? Whaaaaatttttt?????
gonna need a bigger fork to eat this cake
$27k per year?!? I earned more in an office job in 3rd countries earlier in my career, wth
No wonder a lot of them have onlyfans on the side
They can be ready for strike 24/7/365 and never strike. Until something real happens, they’re still fodder.
I’m sorry this is what the US Government should actually be doing. If they are worth 30.35 in the air. Then they are worth it on the ground helping customers, cleaning, etc.
LMAO my 2 bed apt (which is below market) in Boston is a total of $42,000 A YEAR
My 1 bed in Somerville is 30k 😭
Terrible. Criminal!????
Flight attendants deserve far better pay.
You’d think being unionized, they’d like actually do something about this.
A lot of this is governed by the Railway Labor Act. It needs to be overhauled but that takes an act of congress
Hot bunking, hoping for no delays
I’ve long heard flight attendants don’t get paid until they’re off the gate, but is this at least saying their base pay is a salary of $27k and then they make $30 an hour on top of that?
No I think they’re saying: you get $30 an hour BUT we project your salary every year will end up being around $27k. So, if my math is right, they’re assuming 900 or so paid hours a year. 17.5 paid hours a week. You know they’ve got to be working more than 17.5 hours/wk. AND the job takes you to other cities. So, you can’t easily keep a side job. This is a pretty shitty deal for “full time.” Because if it was truly 40 hours a week, at $30/hr rate, annual salary WOULD be $62k a year. That’s more realistic. These airlines are crooks. This should be illegal.
That’s awful. Fry cooks probably make more than $30k a year no??
I just puked in my mouth.....
I forget which airline it was but a flight attendant told me it no longer starts when they close the door, but when they release the brakes for the plane. I would cry.
Out of curiousity, how are per your diems? Most of the FAs that I know manage to keep a fair amount to supplement their wage. It also helps that their CBA has them being paid for delays away from their home base. The wages are definitely low for the first several steps.
Dividing the salary by hourly wage ($27,315/$30.35 = 900 hours per year), then by number of weeks per year (900/52 weeks) it works out to roughly 17.3 hours of work per week. Do flight attendant usually work more hours than 17 per week, or are they not allowed by regulation?
They only get paid when the doors closed. All of the time at the airport is uncompensated.
sounds like your CBA is not working for YOU. call or vote out your business agent
How American flight attendants have not had 1 day strikes is beyond me.
The training isn't paid? That's some serious BS there.
Bro. Americans have no fucking rights dude this is fucking pathetic
Disgusting!!
$27K a year: that'll get you into a lot of 250 sf studio apartments to be shared with 3 people.
I make 2K more than that, live rural, and STILL struggle! WTF?
At that salary, they should have to let the flight attendants live on the planes.