Delta to pay flight attendants throughout boarding amidst union push

Delta Air Lines stated it will begin paying flight attendants throughout boarding, a very first for a significant U.S. airline company and an effort that comes throughout a unionization drive for the Atlanta- based airline company’s most significant work group.

Usually, flight attendants are paid beginning when the airplane doors close.

Delta prepares to start the boarding pay, half of flight attendants’ per hour rates, on June 2, according to a business memo. The provider is likewise increasing boarding time for narrow-body flights to 40 minutes from 35, which the business states is “one of several steps we’re taking to add resiliency to our operation.”

The pay modifications were revealed as a union project by the Association of Flight Attendants that began in late 2019 gets steam once again as the Covid pandemic crisis subsides for airline companies.

Delta’s more than 20,000 flight attendants are not unionized, unlike those at other significant U.S. airline companies.

“As we get closer to filing for our union vote, management is getting nervous,” the AFA stated late Monday in a declaration. The company is the nation’s biggest flight attendants union, representing cabin teams at United, Spirit, Hawaiian, Alaska and Frontier, to name a few.

“In this case, they also know that changing domestic boarding time from 35 to 40 minutes without adding a benefit would create an uproar — just as the ‘test’ in Atlanta did back in October,” the AFA stated, describing a test of the brand-new treatment last fall.

Henry Harteveldt, creator of travel consulting company Atmosphere Research Group, stated Delta’s relocation is “proactive.”

“If people feel like they are not being treated well they are more open to joining a union,” he stated.

The boarding pay is on top of the 4% raises Delta revealed in March, staff members’ very first yearly boost because 2019.