United Airlines is offering a big bonus to flight attendants willing to work extra flights over the Independence Day holiday period as it seeks to rebound from an operational tailspin that has led to the delay or cancellation of thousands of flights this week.
300% Of Base Pay For United Airlines Flight Attendants As It Attempts to Regain Control Of Operations With Generous Bonus
It has been a very rough week for Chicago-based United Airlines. Trouble began over the weekend with a number of air traffic control issues then escalated with a fierce series of summer thunderstorms. The result has been a snowball effect of delays and cancellations approaching a meltdown. Per FlightAware:
- On Sunday, June 25, 2023, United Airlines canceled 338 flights (11% of its schedule) and delayed 1195 flights (41% of its schedule)
- On Monday, June 26, 2023 United Airlines canceled 589 flights (19% of its schedule) and delayed 1207 flights (40% of its schedule)
- On Tuesday, June 27, 2023 United Airlines canceled 785 flights (26% of its schedule) and delayed 1308 flights (44% of its schedule)
- On Wednesday, June 28, 2023 United Airlines canceled 629 flights (22% of its schedule) and delayed 1191 flights (41% of its schedule)
- Thus far today (as of 10:00 am ET), United has canceled 347 flights (12% of its schedule) and delayed 221 flights (7%).
A United spokesperson told Live And Let’s Fly that it expects operations to normalize by the holiday weekend:
We’re beginning to see improvement across our operation. We expect to cancel far fewer seats today compared to yesterday and our baggage backlog at Newark has dropped more than 30% since Tuesday, and off-duty flight attendants are calling in from across the country to staff open trips. It’s all-hands-on-deck as our pilots get aircraft moving, contact center teams work overtime to take care of our customers, and our airport customer service staff works tirelessly to deliver bags and board flights. As our operation improves in the days ahead, we will be on track to restore our operation for the holiday weekend.
One way it is trying to get operations back on track is by offering flight attendants a big bonus to pick up trips this week…to the tune of 300% of normal pay.
An AFA-CWA, the union representing United flights attendants, bulletin shares of the bonus:
We want to express our gratitude for your support in picking up the 300% offer, as it significantly benefits our flying partners. Your dedication is crucial, and we sincerely thank you for standing with us. It is our commitment to ensure that management provides reliable support to Flight Attendants amidst this disruption.
We are pleased to inform you that we are making progress in addressing the cancellations and delays, which is an encouraging sign. The company is regaining control over our operations, and we are actively working to resolve the numerous issues stemming from these recent events.
The period between June 28, 2023 and July 6, 2023 has been characterized as a “white/purple flag” event that triggers the bonus (far above the usual 50% bonus for working during this holiday period).
It does not appear that pilots–who are in the midst of fierce contract negations with United–have received a similar offer.
CONCLUSION
Flying United has been quite messy this week (I can certainly attest to this), but the carrier claims it is getting back on track and hopes for a smooth holiday weekend. That remains to be determined, but bonuses amounting to pay of up to 300% of normal levels to flight attendants over this period should certainly ensure there is sufficient crew availability during this difficult period.
image: United Airlines
United’s operational meltdown this week may have had its origins in weather and the shortcomings of the country’s underfunded air traffic control model, consistent with the US’s crumbling infrastructure and underinvestment in it, but the real source of the problem is United’s problematic Newark hub. Profitable, yes. Lucrative, sure. But Newark has so many dysfunctions that even on the sunniest of days, it can be challenging to operate. A case in point is a recent flight I took to EDI from EWR. Plane had arrived a full 9 hours earlier in the day, from the West Coast, sat on an apron, and yet the airline and the airport could not find the way to ferry the plane over to a gate for an on time departure due to ground traffic during peak departures. Flight was delayed 4 hours. It was a sunny, warm day. No weather. No crew issues. Just the usual mess that Newark is.
What do United’s numbers look like when including the regional flights doing business as United Express?
Even worse.
Honestly if you look at the flightaware cancelations since Monday the regionals for UA don’t look bad. Republic has had a lot but they don’t only fly for United
Suggest you check again – as of 8:05AM, UA has cancelled 304 flights, or 11% of its schedule.
I feel there is more to the story than pointing the finger at weather and air traffic control.
Pumping out 300% bonuses and a lack luster recovery indicates issues originating in the United C-Suite.
Too obsessed with their bonuses and too distracted calculating the strike point of their stock options.
It is clearly an internal issue with United Airlines. You can not even get in contact with anyone with in United. I was on hold for over an 1 hour last night and now again since 5;20 am waiting in que for an agent. Both the chat and telephone are locked, maybe perhaps they just don’t have the staffing to accommodate.
What’s really fascinating is that this has gone the entire week without any real public backlash like we saw with the WN meltdown. Either UA is handling it better as to recovering customers or we are all starting to get numb to these occurrences.
United hasn’t canceled nearly the amount of flights that southwest did… they were barely operating for over a week
I bet southwest is having a field day with this. Altho they haven’t put out a snarky advert like UA did during WN trouble. Watch what you say UA about others, karma, it’ll bite you in the arse
“approaching a meltdown” … If this was any other airline you’d be calling it a meltdown in bold capital letters. But as always, you give United a pass.
Yes Stuart where is the public outrage? Perhaps UA getting out in front of the problem softened the anger some, or made it a trickle rather than a tsunami like Southwest. But is the tsunami still on the horizon with the upcoming holiday? I am suspicious the bonus pay offer indicates another known problem.
Families have made plans, rented vacation homes, and scheduled time for the holiday. I hope their time together is not lost this summer as it was in the winter.
UA getting out in front of the problem? Talk is cheap. No one is going to give UA credit for “getting out in front of the problem” esp when they use this BS excuse that weather caused their outages (instead of being short staffed).
“Approaching a meltdown?” Doesn’t 580-700+ cancellations per day mean that we’re well deep within that territory now?
I won’t quibble if you want to call it that, but with Spirit and Southwest it was more like a 50%+ cancellation rate.
@ John L. Agreed what was said was mostly a distraction. But useful in a way, like anesthesia to blunt the pain for the moment with finger pointing. And if staff scheduling was properly in place why offer the bonuses? It’s gaslighting pure and simple
That picture at the top is pure discrimination! There are two women and two minority men. There should be 4 white men only! Everyone knows that unless white men are represented 100% that it’s pure liberal racism! I’m so outraged I don’t know what to do! I need to open up grindr and find a big man’s man to vent to!
That’s ok. The white men will just have to compete on merit which has been fine with us.
I always hear things like “it’s easier to get in to Harvard than it is to get hired as an FA at a US carrier,” and things like that about how many people want to be FAs. Why is it that if so many people want to do this job, they actually have to pay TRIPLE to those who have already been hired when things go South a little bit. The solution to me seems logical, but I guess there’s no logic involved when working with a union.
I’ve been at airports attempting to work the past few days in the middle of a pairing that had fallen apart, including sleeping the night in the airport. But if you can’t get in contact with Scheduling (and nobody can), they can’t staff the flights. The flight attendants have been trying to work, but nobody is available at Scheduling to make that happen. There’s been a pilot shortage for a while, but I’d place the blame for this full meltdown squarely on the shoulders of Inflight Scheduling (or those who should have hired more schedulers and created a better, more flexible computer system). Many of the delays were, for example, one missing flight attendant stuck in another city with 15 deadheading flight attendants all volunteering to replace that one, but nobody able to do so because nobody from the base manager on down to the most junior new hire can get Scheduling on the phone or computer. An hour Kacey? Try 6-8 hours before giving up, despite the repeated messages from the company that hold times were “only” 2-3 hours. This is the worst situation I’ve seen in decades of flying and it is so bad I have to think it must be deliberate for reasons I cannot fathom. And I never went anywhere near the eastern half of the country.
Something is wrong having FAs physically call scheduling. Sounds like some out of the 50’s when the only way to book an airline ticket was via a phone call!!
With all this hype of AI and Watson (remember when IBM was going to Change The World), FAs are put on hold for extended periods of time to get an assignment or reschedule. Yet, on my cell phone, I can reschedule a flight, play games, and browse social media at the same time.
Who ever develops the platform to handle FA rescheduling via a cell phone will be a very wealthy person. Surprised some venture capitalist has not run with the ball on this one. Better yet, lease the software with one penny per tap. Sounds minimal, but the pennies will add up very quickly!!!
That’s very thoughtful of them to pay flight crew, now how about the airport staff that actually help the customers during this fiasco. They worked their tails off and get nothing but yelled, screamed, cursed at by all passengers. Why don’t they get paid more? Why don’t they get bonuses?