American Airlines Flight Attendants Will Soon Become The First Unionized Worforce to Earn ‘Boarding Pay’ Six Months After Contract Was Ratified

Flight attendants will soon start earning the “most requested” new benefit from their updated contract—an agreement that was years in the making and so contentious that crew members at the Fort Worth-based carrier tried to go on strike on two separate occasions.

From April 1, flight attendants will start earning ‘boarding pay’ as up until now, crew members only made money from the moment that the plane pushed back from the gate until it arrived at its destination.

Essentially, flight attendants at one of the world’s biggest airlines have been working for free during boarding and deplaning, even during significant ground delays, and the flight attendant union was determined to change this.

Working for free during what is one of the busiest and most stressful parts of a flight attendant’s day has been a uniquely American problem that disadvantaged junior crew members more than their veteran coworkers because they are more likely to work multiple, shorter flights with more of their working day taken up by boarding and deplaning.

It wasn’t until 2022, when Delta made history by becoming the first major US carrier to start paying its non-unionized flight attendants for boarding, that the issue became a major focus for their peers at other major airlines.

Boarding pay at American Airlines is set to significantly improve the earning ability of flight attendants, which is set at half the hourly flying rate but paid based on the scheduled boarding time.

For example, the hourly rate for a new-hire flight attendant is $35.82 but for a domestic flight with a scheduled boarding time of 35 minutes, the crew member will earn $8.96 in boarding pay.

In contrast, a veteran crew member with at least 13 years of service earns just over $82 per hour in the air but will earn around $24 in boarding pay for a domestic flight.

That means that even if a flight is subject to a ground delay at the gate, flight attendants won’t earn any additional money until the plane pushes back from the gate and their normal hourly flying pay kicks in.

However, flight attendants are eligible for boarding pay each time a plane is boarded. If passengers board a flight but then have to deplane due to a maintenance issue or unruly passengers, the crew members will earn boarding pay the second time the passengers board the plane.

Boarding pay will also apply even if boarding has to be stopped, for whatever reasons. In fact, as soon as the first passengers steps onboard the aircraft, the flight attendants will earn their boarding pay allowance.

With the addition of boarding, the flight attendant union claims that its members have been awarded annual pay rises of up to 33%, although not all flight attendants were keen to start earning boarding pay.

Some veteran flight attendants argued that all pay increases should have been included in the normal hourly flying rate, effectively sticking with the system that they have worked with for years.

Choosing this option would, of course, have been more beneficial to senior flight attendants who are able to work long-haul flights, meaning that they spend longer in the air and less time boarding than their new-hire colleagues.

Of the three largest airlines in the US, flight attendants at United Airlines remain without boarding pay as contract negotiations drag on at a glacially slow pace. The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) would like to see its members at United paid for any time they spend at work but on the ground, not just for boarding.

As negotiations progress, don’t be surprised, however, if the union is forced to concede this demand and simply fight for boarding pay.