Flight Attendants Say ‘Boarding Pay’ Is Making a Real Difference To Their Pay Checks And Some Are Now Choosing To Work Domestic Flights For More Money

Flight attendants at several major US airlines that have introduced ‘boarding pay’ say it is making a real difference in their paychecks and some senior crew members who could get their pick of premium international destinations are now choosing domestic trips to take full advantage of the money-earning potential.

Until 2022, none of the largest carriers in the United States paid flight attendants for boarding and deplaning passengers. Instead, crew members would only start earning their normal hourly rate from the moment the plane pushed back from the gate to when it arrived at its destination.

This method of paying flight attendants was widely criticized for disadvantaging junior flight attendants who routinely work domestic trips with multiple legs or flights each day.

As a result, these flight attendants spend much longer boarding and deplaning passengers than veteran crew members working international trips with just two periods of boarding and deplaning.

In the last few years, some of the largest flight attendant unions in the United States have started to campaign for boarding pay, but it was non-unionized Delta Air Lines that became the first major carrier in June 2022 to start paying its crew members for boarding.

Despite the fact that Delta’s boarding pay is just 50% of a flight attendant’s regular hourly rate, the Atlanta-based carrier said it could add an additional $4,000 in the pockets of crew members each year.

But answering a post on the social media site Reddit, some flight attendants said that was a conservative estimate, and they were earning nearly $450 extra per month in boarding pay.

The amount of boarding pay that flight attendants can expect to earn each month is, however, very much dependent on the type of flying they choose.

Flying mostly long-haul international routes will earn a lot less than domestic and short-haul international trips, where flight attendants will be boarding and deplaning passengers several times a day for between three to four days at a time.

As a result, some flight attendants say they have even started to change the type of trips they bid to work, adding in more domestic and shorter international trips to take advantage of boarding pay.

Along with Delta, non-unionized flight attendants at regional carrier Skywest have also won boarding pay – although at a lower quarterly rate of their usual hourly pay.

One of the reasons why Delta and Skywest have been able to introduce boarding is because there is no union involved and, therefore, no tricky contract negotiations to overcome.

Critics, however, also point out that non-unionized airlines introduced boarding pay in an attempt to stave off the threat of workers forming a union.

Nonetheless, the concept of boarding pay is starting to spread. Earlier this year, unionized flight attendants at Alaska Airlines had boarding pay written into a tentative agreement, although crew members ended up rejecting the proposal, and negotiations are ongoing.

Flight attendants at American Airlines did, though, vote in favor of an updated contract that includes boarding pay, although crew members are yet to see it kick in.

For flight attendants at United Airlines, boarding pay isn’t considered enough, and the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) is fighting for the Chicago-based carrier to pay crew members for all the time they spend on the ground at work.

The proposal has been rejected by United.

Conversely, Persian Gulf airline Etihad Airways, which always traditionally paid flight attendants during boarding and deplaning, decided to go in the other direction earlier this year and no longer pays crew members for time spent on the ground.

Unlike many US carriers, however, Etihad Airways does still pay flight attendants a basic wage, in addition to allowances like flying pay and stipends for when they are on a layover.

Explaining the decision, Etihad Airways told staffers that it would start calculating allowances on ‘block hours’—which starts from the moment the aircraft pushes back from the gate to the moment it arrives at the gate at its destination.

Etihad said the change was ‘long overdue’ as many other airlines already based allowance on block hours and promised to increase the hourly allowance rate by 30% to make up for the shortfall.