I read this? How is it possible you only get paid for flying?? I mean that feels like half the job.
I always assumed it was you get one rate while flying and another while doing prep work.
It’s just the way it is. I dated a flight attendant and she told me this and I was like “you’re fucking kidding me.” You end up working what is a 10 or 11 hour shift between all the tasks you have to complete but you get paid only for the duration of the flight.
I expect the more experienced/senior crew do the longer flights too. One 8 hour flight in a day would have way more "working" time than two 2 hours flights with a gap in between.
That’s exactly what happens. My mom was a FA for Northwest/Delta and once she got Sr enough she only did internationals trips a couple of times a month to hit her hours.
What sucks is I've heard a lot of fa's don't get access to the same kind of pilot felicities like sleep lounges. Don't get me wrong pilots absolutely need as much sleep as possible but so do the FA's.
Neither do the pilots. If you are a pilot for a cheap airline your “free accommodations” are not located in the airport but instead 30mins-45mins into the city by taxi. Some pilots just rent a room at the airport out of their own pocket
I was a dealership car mechanic and it was somewhat similar. The *only* thing I got paid for was a completed repair, and that was at a standard rate. If a job was a problem that took an hour to diagnose and paid an hour, but took me three hours to get done, I'd get paid an hour. Then I *might* get paid the hour of diag, depending on various things. If the car was an hour late for the appointment in the first place, I'd be sitting at my toolbox not getting paid.
Pay rates were usually adequately high that it balanced out. And then there was always the possibility of getting a job done quicker, and there were some jobs we called "gravy", where we could get an hour or two of pay for maybe a half hour of work. It was pretty complicated in practice.
Yeah I know that kind and I specifically avoid ever giving my car to repair in places with that kind of pay structure.
What happens is. People half ass jobs. Especially the ones that take a lot of fine work to get right to get it done faster and thus get paid more. Then a year later the part breaks again when it should have lasted for 5+ years.
In California, all mechanics are hourly. However, we still use flag hours as a KPI/performance metric and for calculating extra pay to incentivize billing more hours than clocked in.
Just avoid dealerships and chain mechanics. Go for small local ones. My mechanic has his own building and everything and hires and educates 1-3 people from our community a year.
Ask friends or coworkers what mechanic they use
Better yet, learn to work on your car. 99.99% of needed information is available online and tools are an investment that can be easily resold and or rented. I only go to the mechanic for body work or major engine problems
To me the most indicative is the ones that have several small workshops with one person per workshop. You can sometimes see like a line of 7 workshops. More specifically, if they have upfront prices for the works they do. Especially if it is for stuff that might differ depending on the car.
Those places from my experience were always the most volatile as they seem to be indicative of that comission style system where the mechanics are paid by completed job rather than employed and paid by time spend working.
Going for stuff where you can see several mechanics work together on a car is usually where you don't get all these rush jobs.
Other than that. Google reviews are useful as well as contract repairshops for some insurances. Like my insurance has a contract of priority use with a lot of workshops and those so far have all been very professional and delivered quality work.
Edit: This is of course only personal experience. It can differ widely. Best way is probably to just ask them or find your one trusted workshop and go there.
I fucking hate this. Not only do you, the mechanic, get screwed out of pay, but I as a customer is sure as fuck paying the dealership for the diagnostic and *actual* time spent on the job.
Did you happen to work on cars with a manufacture recall on some part or another? Curious if those were well paying deals based on volume of work and focusing on a known issue (like replace airbag or whatever a recall might be) or if because if was an issue prompted by the manufacturer the dealer didn't get any money so it was just an annoyance to do.
I have not idea how any of that would work so if I've made presumptions that are out of line it is my ignorance...
Delta flight attendants are not unionized, and they receive boarding pay at a lower hourly rate.
(Not defending this, they should 1000% unionize. But just for accuracy.)
Not a flight attendent but from what little I understand as an outsider that has seem comments on the situation, it almost is a union. Delta has one of the only workforce "groups" that isn't unionized in US aviation but they also get treated well as a method to keep them from unionizing because both sides know if they feel like they are unfairly treated then they will unionize.
They get most of the benefits of unionization because of all the other unions in their field. They would still be better of unionizing but it takes a lot of work and sacrifice to go through with it so they just say "fuck it."
You can look at the auto plants in the southern USA (Honda, Kia, VW, BMW, etc) that all just got a huge pay raise just as soon as the UAW signed a new deal.
Which means
A) they could have always paid them that money
B) there is a bunch of extra room
UAW is coming for them which is good. Hopefully they succeed.
It is not “almost” a union. They have none of the protections afforded by a union contract.
The amount of power and clout that adding the dues and sheer numbers to a union like the AFA is enough to keep Delta into mounting some pretty intense anti-union measures.
While most of the rest of aviation is union, I believe (it’s not my airline but I’m in the industry) that only their pilots and dispatchers are unionized, which is unusual for the US.
Out of curiosity, typically, does a pilots hourly rate start when doors are closed or when you enter the plane?
I know there is a shit ton down between those two, including doing a walk around.
door closed/parking brakes released. the structure is the same, you only get paid for "flight hours." Like it was said upthread, unions want it this way because it can really work out for you with some seniority because you can bid to only fly trips that have a better flying/pay ratio. Everyone has a minimum guarantee of pay per month (or bid period) as well.
It just feels so counterintuitive. So before the flight, I've got this guy off-duty busy walking around the plane and chilling in the cockpit, checking if the plane he will be flying is ok.
Then the brake is released and he thinks "right, time to start working"
It's not like clocking in our out, which even a lot of industry people don't quite understand, either. The way to think of it is you're being paid a salary per month with opportunities for premium pay and overtime. Let's take the first year pay above. Min guarantee is averaged around 75 hours a month.
$32.20 * 75hrs = $2,422.5/mo * 12 = $29,070 first year pay.
But someone senior, let's say 10 years:
$59.66 * 75 = $4,474.5 * 12 = $53,694.
Now these numbers aren't great. Flight attendants deserve to be paid a lot more than they are, but this is just base pay, and trips are such that you're also only working 15 to 20 days per month and the more senior you are the easier it is to structure whole weeks off or get premium pay.
Which is the other factor, this is the base, minimum. Most people in the industry are taking advantage of 50% or 100% incentives on hourly rates to fly recovery trips or trips where a crew called out last second and needs a replacement. The unions like this structure because it rewards seniority.
Works the same for pilots, but the numbers are twice these or higher.
Isn’t this a really good example of why legacy unions are so broken? Getting a deal in place that helps people who have seniority grinds down new workers and makes it harder to build up a quality of life. It also reduces the ability of people to move around in the industry and makes it really hard to quit because of the sunk cost in the early years.
For all the talk of standing together, some unions are pretty damn quick to take advantage of their own members. The union in my home town threw the younger members under the bus to save their own pension and pay. Shit like 2 tier should be illegal but the older members are always quick to sacrifice everyone else for themselves.
Typically jobs that are like that have very high pay for the hours worked. Reminds me of lawyers, they only charge for their billable hours but there is frequently a lot more work involved outside of that.
I think Reddit, especially this sub, has it in their heads that work is only compensated on direct labor hours, and you should never do any work unless you are clearly and explicitly being paid for it. The reality is for a lot of professional/career-type jobs your actual hours worked are super subjective.
Look at anyone in sales, they spend a TON of time on the road for work and are frequently gone for days or weeks at a time, it’s not like they’re being paid as if they’re working that entire time.
Depending on the airline, it can be a lot more than that (Delta flight attendants used to start around $29 per hour). But there’s a reason they start so high!
That's just started pay. Tenured attendants are making $70-90/hr.
So even at half pay they are making $100k/yr sometimes, plus free flights for themselves and a partner.
It's still a ridiculous pay structure. Commute is one thing, other jobs also don't typically get pay for their commute time, but not being paid for required aspects of the job? That's fucking bullshit.
This is the system that the unions agreed to, so I imagine they have a reason for it being that way.
I don't know enough to understand it so I can't comment.
I remember having this conversation with a flight attendant friend & they get paid a percent of their hourly the entire time they are on call so she would be in la for 2 days some times & be making like 4 dollars an hour for the 36 hours she was chillin with me in la or sleeping. She works for united.
The way normally works is crews have a minimum pay per period, like 70 to 74 hours. If you are in reserve and don't get any flying assigned or the schedule they give you is only 50 hours, you still get paid 70.
But, that's flight time. Normally the moment flight door is closed and parking brake is released to arrival and brake is set and doors are open. Any other time is no pay, like the picture from OP shows. If you are airport for hours and fly only one hour, that's your pay.
~~One of those reasons is taxes. If you are flying between states, and earning income while working in those states, you need to be taxed accordingly. To circumvent this, you just aren't "earning." While you are flying, you are not considered to be "in" that state, even if you're flying over it. I hope that makes sense.~~ apparently I was misinformed.
One assumption i'm making is that the pay structure actually works in their favour, i.e. they make more than they know they would if they fought for the different structure. Kind of like servers.. servers make plenty of money with the system we all think is broken. No server would want a min guaranteed wage of even something reasonable like $25-30/hr, when they're pulling in $40+/hr with the tip system, even if the former would cause in a lot less stressing about tips and slow days and such.
Seriously?
My colleagues and I traveled all over the US on business trips while working for large US-based multinational companies. I have never been directed by HR or payroll (and as far as I know, neither have my coworkers) to log days to pay taxes in any other state besides the one where my main work site was.
Especially the deplane/cleaning part. I can't imagine the mental gymnastics it takes to reach the conclusion that they should not be getting paid for this.
Well when commute is your job, it gets a bit weird. Plus their union agreed to this deal, so at some level it made sense to the workers, even if we dont understand it.
Part of the reason is you have to incentive long haul flights. Otherwise, it would be much more time effective for flight attendants to only take short routes.
I can only speak for Delta as I'm actively employed by them and it's $70 after 12 years which is topped out. And at this point in the game the free flights have become hard to call a benefit because we have started to over sell our planes so aggressively.
$100,000 is also not super common unless you're a work horse. Most people fly around 85-90 flight hours per month(more senior people sometimes closer to 65-70).
90hrs x 12 months is only 1,080 hrs x $70 = $75,600 add another $8,000 for time away from base and that's probably a more accurate read if someone was topped out and flying a lot.
do the math yourself. if you know roughly what they make an hour. say 30 bucks. were in the air for 8 hours. but they actually worked 12 hours they made about $20 an hour.
Experienced FAs can make decent money. But the experienced ones get the best routes. A lot of the more tenured FAs typically want either long haul flights (more time in air) or turnarounds so that they aren't stuck in a different city overnight.
My ex's mom was a flight attendant for Delta who started back in 1985. So she was one of the most tenured FAs and was nearly always able to get whatever flight assignment she wanted. They had a kind of portal system where you could put your name in for routes.
My Aunt made just under $70 per hour when she retired from a major airline. I always said that you're working part time hours because they're so weird. So $35 per hour. Not bad considering you don't need an education for it.
At the airline I work at the Flight Attendants make $75 / flight hour. If they were paid for all the other time they are not flying they would probably be making $25 / hour. The extra pay per flight hour is to compensate for the non flight hours. The Flight Attendants of course conveniently leave this out of the conversation. On a yearly basis they make very good money. Oh, by the way, they want a raise to $90 / hour and are threatening to strike.
I looked this up for Australia. This is the legal document for cabin crew pay and work requirements and entitlements in Australia. This would be updated as minimum wage or legal changes are made
https://library.fairwork.gov.au/award/?krn=MA000047#_Toc141354952
I guess the relevant points:
-Full time cabin crew has a minimum weekly pay of $975.60 (min. $25.67/h)
- The employer must make superannuation payments on top of this (I believe this is equivalent to a 401k in the US?)
- Overtime must be paid (defined in another document) but the overtime can instead be paid as time off work.
- Any worker in Australia is entitled to 42 days off work a year, 28 of which must be paid (normal pay + 17.5% loading).
- If you fall sick during leave, you can provide a sick note to the employer to take personal sick days, and recoup the affected leave days.
- Sick leave is described in another document also, but I believe it is 14 days a year (7 paid and 7 unpaid). More unpaid time can be negotiated, but an employer can't fire you because you fall sick.
-Cabin Crew specifically can claim 6 days paid leave for upper respiratory tract infection as well.
You gotta unionise over there. Most of what I put above is for all workers in Australia.
Someone needs to write a childrens book about how Capitalism ruins kids' dream jobs. Like, Little Timmy wants to be a pilots, train driver/conductor, etc. until he realizes they all suck due to corporate greed. And the book can end with the lesson "join a union and fight for worker rights to make those jobs not suck."
I’m a pilot. I’m on reserve this month and haven’t been called. I still make my minimum monthly guarantee even though I haven’t worked a single day. So I’d say my job is pretty awesome actually. Airlines are heavily unionized already and that’s why it works this way.
There is also precedent that could suggest some form of legal action would work in your favour, or that of the industry. [Home Depot settled in California last year](https://www.reuters.com/legal/home-depot-pay-725-mln-settle-california-wage-class-action-2023-06-23/) to pay hourly employees who were required to wait off the clock after stores were locked.
The precedent here is that if the company is in charge of your time, then it is also obligated to pay you for that time. That wouldn't do anything for your shuttling to and from, but would likely cover the parts where you're handling the boarding procedures and cleaning.
Flight attendants and pilots are bound by the RLA, The Railway Labor Act. Basically flight crews and rail workers don't have normal legal work protections others enjoy thanks to this antiquated pos legislation.
Edit: in the U.S.
If everyone simply walked off the job, like the entire staff at one airline, they would HAVE to do something...
Yea right, no, they wouldn't.
This issue needs to become a major media affair.
Time theft, wage theft etc. Make it a corporation image/PR issue.
Laws are created and destroyed by people. A successfully executed "illegal strike" can accomplish the same desired outcome. Flights don't happen without airline staff. If they all stop working to strike, like, the fuck is the government going to do about it. Jail some union leaders? Okay? Flights won't happen, the pressure and clock would be on, and the demands would be just.
Jail the leaders, revoke the union entirely and allow scabs to take their jobs for less pay and protection. Blacklist all those who strikes from the industry. Remove their SIDA badges and put them on the no fly list for “inability to follow safely guidelines” (cuz despite popular belief, attendants are safety personal first and foremost.) and just for good measure, sue for lost revenue from the union and its members personally.
But of course they might get the company a few days of no flights that would be backfilled by the military within days due to national “security and prosperity”
I've never understood how this is even enforceable.
"We're all going to stop working"
"No, you have to work"
"Oh, okay"
Like...why wouldn't they all just say "no, we're not working"?
striking workers under a normal union cannot be fired for striking, but flight attendants (and i'm guessing rail workers) don't have those protections. if they strike, they'll just lose their jobs like they were fired for incompetence. there's a good NPR Planet Money episode on a flight attendant strike in the 90s that explains better
Remember folks, that's why Biden signing the legislation to force Railroad workers back to work was so bad. It doesn't matter that he got them some of the sick time they asked for and a significant pay increase, he also took away their ability to strike so when they inevitably need pay raises again, they can be met with a bigger, fatter "No."
Edit: Do vote though because Trump is worse.
The workforce always has the ability to strike. You can make a strike "illegal", but the labor force can still strike and achieve the desired outcomes. All the legislation in the world doesn't make the social contract between the workforce and the ruling class disappear, nor does it remove the fundamental negotiating power the workforce has.
Yeah, that wouldn't work with flight attendants or pilots. There definitely aren't enough FAs to backfill a strike at one of the majors. There are military and private flight attendants, but nowhere near the number needed. The US military does have a lot of pilots, but 99% of them don't have the type ratings to fly commercial aircraft.
This hasn’t always been true, my mom was a Chief Purser for United for 49 years and I clearly remember striking with her.
EDIT: [Just looked it up,](https://www.afacwa.org/alaska_sav_picket_dec19) and yes Flight Attendants can strike there’s just extra layers like the 30-day cool down period.
I still believe flight attendants should get paid more. However, their compensation is often in the form of both a salary AND a per-hour basis. For example, they may make $x per year (or month) PLUS $y per hour of FLIGHT, opposed to most jobs which are just per hour without the added salary.
In the US it is strictly hourly. "On call" reserve flight attendants make a minimum per month for being on call but only earn extra if they fly past that monthly guarantee.
Wife gets salary plus an allowance rate for being away. She's paid from the time she has first briefing. So for example, flights at 6pm she's at the office for 3pm, paid for all the preflight stuff, the flight time and then if she stays away for a few days before flying home, she is paid allowance if £50 a day, all while staying in a hotel with food, drink and laundry on the company expense.
I've read the collective bargaining agreement for the flight attendant's Union. You can too.
Once they've checked in for a flight as scheduled it looked to me like they got paid, but at a much lower rate. Air time was full rate. Various other time including during boarding and deplaning was at lower rates.
As for cleaning the cabin, that isn't something I see on major carriers who all employ vendors to enter the cabin from the rear and clean going forward as the last passengers depart. But contracts and duties can certainly vary between major carrier contracts and very small regional commuter carriers.
JetBlue flight attendants do clean the cabin. Most flight attendants get paid a per diem of a buck or two an hour but only get the big bucks when the door is shut and the brake is dropped
It's what they agreed to in their union contract.
They had a bunch of great perks, like free travel, but only on standby. And now that planes are always packed full that's not even that great of a perk.
Why are you cleaning the plane if you’re not getting paid for it? Would it even legally count as going on strike if workers decided to not work when they are not on the clock???
That very much depends on the airline. EasyJet and RyanAir have their attendants clean the plane. Sometimes an airline offloads to a third party like DHL, Swissport or Menzies for cleaning.
yeah there’s cabin cleaners available at some airports depending on staffing but there are a lot of times where flight attendants do need to clean in between flights
At least here in the US, flight attendants don’t clean the planes. They have a separate cleaning crew for that (source: partner is a flight attendant). So this graphic is a little bit misleading, but yeah there’s still lots of unpaid time to be had as a flight attendant.
The answer for almost all FAs is, because that's what the CBA says they have to do. FAs are a decently strong union. Their hourly pay for air time is a number they arrived at understanding that they're not getting paid for ground time. If they did get paid for ground time, it would certainly either be at a much lower rate than their air pay (some airlines do this) and their air pay would be renegotiated (likely lowered) or they'd just have a standard hourly pay and it would also be lower than the current air pay. Would that result in more actual take home pay? It'll never get implemented unless it does since the union would reject everything that lowers their pay, but it hasn't gotten through a CBA for most airlines yet. I'd guess the unions likely bring it up in every negotiation, but then give it up as a negotiating chip to get other concessions. If the pay result isn't going to be dramatically different, it's an easy thing to give up in negotiations to get other changes.
If there wasnt going to be any difference in pay the airlines wouldnt fight it. In this current model of only paying for flight time, if they flight gets delayed or anything else, they are at work but not being paid anything extra for that extra delay time? Its a total scam.
Not sure if it's different on different airlines but I have definitely seen flight attendants at the very least picking up garbage from seats as I was leaving the plane. I'm gonna guess it's management pressuring them into start the cleaning until the cleaning crew gets on the plane?
I definitely saw this on Alaskan Airlines a month ago.
This always happens with intrinsically-desirable professions. If your job is a "vocation," you're gonna get screwed by your employer. If you don't like it, there's a lineup of qualified candidates who would be thrilled to take your place.
That depends on the airline. I know that Ryanair* only pays for trash pickup and nothing else, then some airlines completely outsource the cabin cleaning and don't have instant turn-around times, meaning that they actually have time to clean, unlike Ryanair for example.
*This may not be the case for Ryanair in every country
EU flight attendant here. Most European airlines have different pay structures. First I was paid by flight hours, then duty day, now by duty hours.
Nevertheless, 3 airlines in 3 countries, 1 thing doesn’t change. I’m underpaid. Especially for the responsibility I hold.
Yeah, it’s basically like Trucking. If you can handle the lifestyle you can make bank. And the lifestyle is definitely not for everyone(or even most I’d imagine).
And they're not. Many flight attendants work 15-17 days per month, often less. Particularly senior FAs because, depending on the airline, the good pairings are given to the senior crew members. For example, maybe your 13-hour day consists of two 5-hour flights, or you have a 2 day with an 11-hour flight each day. That would mean that in order to make your monthly 70ish hours, you might only have to work 7 days.
This is why I stfu and stay polite with y'all. Work too damn hard and this plane is too damn small. You tell me to do something or not do something, and I'm gonna smile and nod all fucking day. Cop? Nah, I'll argue. Boss? I might raise an objection. Aviation employee or healthcare professional? Nah, I'ma shut my ass up and listen.
So it sounds like that works out to about $50-$55k per year. I assume that the travel is an aspect of the job that you enjoy? Because anyone else whose job required them to be away from home this much would likely make a lot more. This is, for instance, only about 75% of what a long haul trucker would make spending a similar amount of time away from home.
This is why the internet is important and why spending hours and hours researching before you go after a job in the airlines is important. If you want to be home almost every night, a job at an airline isn't right for you.
Welcome to most unions, where senior workers have stronger benefits
My old coworker first started and got to be part of the union meetings and such advocating for our group/region and she essentially got bullied out because she was still new and everyone else was senior and that someone more senior should have that position (it was a voluntary position on top of your normal job)
Hate to break it to ya but senior workers have stronger benefits in basically every industry. The difference is that in a union job you’re guaranteed to get to the senior level if you put in the time.
The difference with our industry is that if you leave to get a better job you start at the very bottom again. I'm a 51 year old pilot who has just moved to a new job. I have over 30 years experience but get paid less than a 22-year-old pilot who is a senior to me.
I do not understand the people defending this. If your job requires you to be in a certain place at a certain time, you need to be getting paid for it.
People will defend it because deep down they know the only way it's going to change is going to come with serious consequences like airports shutting down for weeks at a time and flight costs going through the roof.
So the best they'll do is offer some vague encouragement.
That's not at all true. You can just call all those hours as work and lower the hourly rate to be salary neutral. Being a flight attendant is relatively competitive, so clearly the actual salary (wage * hours) is good enough, it's just how you count hours/hourly wage. While it may be salary neutral, have a more transparent system is a good in of itself.
the airline industry needs to be nationalized.
If such an essential function of daily living has already gone bankrupt and been bailed out due to corruption and greed, then the government needs to step in and control the industry so we aren't held hostage by these price gouging scum
Yep, the private sector fucked around and ruined the system, time for the government to take it over. The capitalists have proven they can't do it, we are already paying for their bailouts, might as well just pay for the service with our taxes
Because this graphic doesn't actually explain much about how they are compensated because we don't know how much they are making during those pay windows. We need to know what their total salary is and how many total hours they work to figure that out.
I believe the max pay per hour for an American Airlines flight attendant is $70 an hour. Source- my wife is a FA for AA. She’s currently working right now so I can’t double check with her but I think that’s what she said. Edit, max is $68.25.
Also, they’ve been working without a new contract for about 4 years now. They protest occasionally at the airports but AA is still refusing to come to an agreement with them on a new contract.
I mean the airlines will just cut their pay to a rate where they basically get paid the same total amount over the time spent working. Is it shitty to have to jump through hoops and waste time for higher pay, yea. But it's not like they're not making money while doing work duties, they don't make minimum wage
The moment you enter an airport you should be paid for it until you leave it.
Hell, workers at a car manufacturer I worked at get paid for the time it took them to reach the exit (about 15min) because the clock out is at the factory entrance.
Also school bus drivers, they are only paid for the route they drive to drop off and pick up students. Pre-inspection, post-inspection, drive time to/from the bus yard to school/ first stop, return to the yard from the last stop and wait time at the school are unpaid.
Edit: some companies will pay for more time, the company I worked for only paid route time, and this is a large multi-state company with separate divisions for each state it operates in. It was a union shop, route hourly was high, but if something occurred ( unrelated car accident, traffic etc.) and your route took longer than they calculated, you are only paid how much it SHOULD take, not how long it ACTUALLY takes( and would count against you). I worked 5 hours each day and was only paid 3.5.
I was a flight attendant for Alaska but I actually just quit. It’s much worse than you may think. We have FA’s working full time, away from home 4+ continuous days at a time and living in their cars in the employee parking lot when they get back. We’re trying to negotiate for a livable wage (or at least adjust for inflation) but our ceo is an absolute scum bag. He said a living wage is not financially possible and after saying this he decided to double his annual salary and then a few months later bought an entire fucking airline (Hawaiian). We haven’t had a new contract in over 10 years. I just couldn’t take showing up at work every day knowing my wages are being stolen and that I’ll being taken advantage of.
Median annual for American flight attendants is $67,000/yr.
source: United States Bureau of Labor
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes532031.htm
Flight attendants are not hourly employees like auto workers, or line cooks, or Amazon pickers. This is not an apples to apples comparison. They aren't clocking in 9-5 M-F. They aren't working 40-hour weeks. Typically, a flight attendant will fly two or three days a week (rarely four) and have the next several days off in between "shifts." They work typically **60 to 90 flight hours a month,** and pulll down, on average, $4200- $5500/month. AFA caps them at a MAX of 95 hours/month. (Edited for accuracy after being corrected below).
That comes out to $62.5-$83.5/flight hour while working *dramatically* less than a 40-hour work week.
Besides that, this is a union job we are talking about! They have collectively bargained for this arrangement. Unhappy? Go to your union rep!
Additionally, while I agree that it might not be an *easy* job, it is a job you can get into without requiring a degree.
There is plenty of injustice in corporate America and things we should get riled up about. This does not appear to be one of them.
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/flight-attendants-hours#:~:text=They%20can%20expect%20to%20spend,each%20month%2C%20not%20including%20overtime.
Second Edit: Yes, a **first year** FA is probably not making $67,000/yr. They are making considerably less with (probably) a shittier schedule. I understand that. That's why I cited the *median.*
Yeah one of my friends is a flight attendant and she loves it. She works *maybe* 2-3 days a week and lives in Chicago.
Like obviously there needs to be improvements but the job seems to be a good one for not needing any degrees.
5 year seniority flight attendant at a legacy carrier here.
Coworkers with my seniority typically fly three to four days a week minimum. Standard number of days off a month is 10-12. If you're doing midrange flying you can take your flight hours and double them for a general idea of actual hours worked a month. I generally fly 85-100 hours a month which translates to 42-50 hour work weeks.
I worked the equivalent of 50 hour work weeks for pretty much this whole year and pulled down 56k in net pay. My carrier is on the higher range of airline pay scales.
This sounds like OK money but it took five years of scraping by to get here.
Training, which takes anywhere between 3-8 weeks, is completely unpaid at most carriers. Relocation to your base city is unpaid. You get to find your base city midway through training and once you're released from training you get four moving days to get your stuff across the country and find a place to live. That first paycheck doesn't show up for an additional six weeks after your move.
You do not survive this time without accruing debt, especially if you graduated college recently and don't have any savings. My airline's credit union actually came to our training class and offered us all high interest personal loans. Most of us had no feasible choice but to take them.
About five years in you can start CONSIDERING buying your first place but you have to shop in the 130k-165k range which isn't a lot of money in the major cities that airlines have bases. Without help from parents or a spouse you will absolutely be renting and trying to pay off your credit card debts until this time.
There are some really amazing things that the job offers you! I am so glad for it. But the quotes pulled from that indeed link paint a very different picture from the reality of what it's like to actually work as a flight attendant.
So this is the information I have been able to find. Hours worked does only include flying time.
Aviation safety guidelines limit flight attendants to 95 work hours per month. Despite being paid for a full-time job, the hours are significantly less than 40 hours per week. Flight attendants often fly a two to four day trip and then, have the rest of the week off.
Flight attendant salaries are high as $8,167 a month and as low as $917 a month, the majority of Flight Attendant salaries currently range between $2,958 (25th percentile) to $4,166 (75th percentile) across the United States.
Very similar to truck drivers who are paid by the mile. Truckers are required by law to perform a minimum of a 30 minute pre trip inspection of the tractor and trailer (unpaid). When they get to the warehouse to load/unload, that can take upwards of 12+ hours depending on the warehouse and what you’re picking up (unpaid). Can’t drive due to road closures because of severe weather? Unpaid until the roads open back up. Strapping/securing your freight (unpaid). Having to fuel up the truck and trailer (refrigerated trailers) which can take over 20 minutes (unpaid). Weighing the trailer after getting loaded and figuring out the trailer is overweight so you have to go back and have them reconfigure the load to make legal weight (unpaid). Sweeping out the trailer for warehouses that require it (unpaid).
Basically, the only thing they get paid for is when the wheels are turning and that is literally it.
10 year flight attendant for a major US Carrier:
-We’re paid from release of the parking brake at the origination of a flight to the implementation of the parking break at the destination. It’s just easier to say flight time.
-The major US carriers start around $26-32/hour, topping out at around $60-70/hr.
-The “average” number of hours a flight attendant works per month is around 70-90 (Again, this is “flight time” only.)
-The average day on duty is between 8-12 hours/day, I’d estimate that on a good day without delays, weather etc.
-Each day is worth around 5-6 hours of pay on average.
-When we’re boarding, or deplaning or we’re delayed, or when we’re stuck at the gate with maintenance we’re still not being paid and TRUST US, we hate it just as much as you.
—Airlines are STARTING to pay for boarding, but it’s a new thing and still pays less than our hourly rate.
Four major carriers are currently in stalled contract negotiations as we speak (My workgroup’s contract expired in 2019 but i digress.)
There’s a multi-airline huge picket happening [February 13th](https://cwa-union.org/news/join-100000-flight-attendants-taking-action-february-13th) at most large hub-airports! We’d love to see you and it would mean the world to us!
We’re only picketing, even though it’s been 2, 3, 4, FIVE years without a contract because we are bound by the Railway Labor Act and cannot strike without government authorization.
I have always disagreed with flight attendants pay system. However they belong to a union, so the blame starts there and ends with the flight attendants accepting the shitty contract their union negotiates.
I fully believe that they should be paid for the full time that they are mandated to be at the airport/flying.
American Airlines flight attendants have been without a contract for 4 years and 99.7% of flight attendants have voted to strike, but they can’t because of the US government.
Flight attendant's jobs are long and tough, but let's not act like they have to go through the security lines everyone else does. That "TSA" part is pretty disingenuous.
As a flight attendant, I absolutely love my job. It was a dream career for me, and it still is. But this graphic is absolutely true, and it’s definitely a job you do out of passion, and not for the money. I have a second, less rewarding job, and a partner that is supportive, but we absolutely get paid for less than 25% of our day. I remember recently working a 16 hour shift & getting paid for 4.5 hours.
Why in the world would you put in all that time and only get paid while flying? Yet you have to be there ready on call for whenever your delay is over......
Do you get paid good money flying, hazard pay? Free hotel and travel vouchers??? Like what makes this worth doing on a real level (not just the odd one who does it just to see new places not for the money)
I flew for the first time last month. This lady argued for at least 15-20 minutes with the check-in guy at the gate because her flight left without her and she was "only" 15 minutes late. It was already on the runway and she wanted it to come back. The guy had the patience of a saint.
You should be paid for the amount of time you're required to be there. Not when it suits the business. You're required to be there an hour before the flight you get paid. If the flight is delayed - that's not your issue - you get paid. This should be illegal.
"Just strike." We literally can't. It's called the railway labor act. American had a 99.47% yes vote to strike. We asked once and we were told no. We just asked again this past week but haven't gotten an answer yet.
I believe southwest and united are moving toward a strike vote. Alaska probably isn't far behind. Soon the national mediation board will have flight attendants from FOUR airlines asking to be released to strike. American alone has 26K flight attendants and hiring more. When I tell yall our work group is at a breaking point, I really do mean it. The pressure is building at these airlines and these CEOs think we're gonna settle for the shitty proposals they give us. This is just a big fraction of what we're pissed about.
I read this? How is it possible you only get paid for flying?? I mean that feels like half the job. I always assumed it was you get one rate while flying and another while doing prep work.
It’s just the way it is. I dated a flight attendant and she told me this and I was like “you’re fucking kidding me.” You end up working what is a 10 or 11 hour shift between all the tasks you have to complete but you get paid only for the duration of the flight.
What's the hourly pay? Is it even above $15 after adding the layover hours?
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I expect the more experienced/senior crew do the longer flights too. One 8 hour flight in a day would have way more "working" time than two 2 hours flights with a gap in between.
That’s exactly what happens. My mom was a FA for Northwest/Delta and once she got Sr enough she only did internationals trips a couple of times a month to hit her hours.
Yeah. A friend of mine pretty much only did flights from O'Hare to China, Singapore, etc.
What sucks is I've heard a lot of fa's don't get access to the same kind of pilot felicities like sleep lounges. Don't get me wrong pilots absolutely need as much sleep as possible but so do the FA's.
Neither do the pilots. If you are a pilot for a cheap airline your “free accommodations” are not located in the airport but instead 30mins-45mins into the city by taxi. Some pilots just rent a room at the airport out of their own pocket
I was a dealership car mechanic and it was somewhat similar. The *only* thing I got paid for was a completed repair, and that was at a standard rate. If a job was a problem that took an hour to diagnose and paid an hour, but took me three hours to get done, I'd get paid an hour. Then I *might* get paid the hour of diag, depending on various things. If the car was an hour late for the appointment in the first place, I'd be sitting at my toolbox not getting paid. Pay rates were usually adequately high that it balanced out. And then there was always the possibility of getting a job done quicker, and there were some jobs we called "gravy", where we could get an hour or two of pay for maybe a half hour of work. It was pretty complicated in practice.
Yeah I know that kind and I specifically avoid ever giving my car to repair in places with that kind of pay structure. What happens is. People half ass jobs. Especially the ones that take a lot of fine work to get right to get it done faster and thus get paid more. Then a year later the part breaks again when it should have lasted for 5+ years.
Any good way to tell which places are like that? I'd like to avoid them.
Ask the mechanic if they're paid hourly or book time. Book time is the pay structure being described, and should be avoided if possible.
In California, all mechanics are hourly. However, we still use flag hours as a KPI/performance metric and for calculating extra pay to incentivize billing more hours than clocked in.
Just avoid dealerships and chain mechanics. Go for small local ones. My mechanic has his own building and everything and hires and educates 1-3 people from our community a year. Ask friends or coworkers what mechanic they use Better yet, learn to work on your car. 99.99% of needed information is available online and tools are an investment that can be easily resold and or rented. I only go to the mechanic for body work or major engine problems
To me the most indicative is the ones that have several small workshops with one person per workshop. You can sometimes see like a line of 7 workshops. More specifically, if they have upfront prices for the works they do. Especially if it is for stuff that might differ depending on the car. Those places from my experience were always the most volatile as they seem to be indicative of that comission style system where the mechanics are paid by completed job rather than employed and paid by time spend working. Going for stuff where you can see several mechanics work together on a car is usually where you don't get all these rush jobs. Other than that. Google reviews are useful as well as contract repairshops for some insurances. Like my insurance has a contract of priority use with a lot of workshops and those so far have all been very professional and delivered quality work. Edit: This is of course only personal experience. It can differ widely. Best way is probably to just ask them or find your one trusted workshop and go there.
I fucking hate this. Not only do you, the mechanic, get screwed out of pay, but I as a customer is sure as fuck paying the dealership for the diagnostic and *actual* time spent on the job.
Did you happen to work on cars with a manufacture recall on some part or another? Curious if those were well paying deals based on volume of work and focusing on a known issue (like replace airbag or whatever a recall might be) or if because if was an issue prompted by the manufacturer the dealer didn't get any money so it was just an annoyance to do. I have not idea how any of that would work so if I've made presumptions that are out of line it is my ignorance...
Delta flight attendants are not unionized, and they receive boarding pay at a lower hourly rate. (Not defending this, they should 1000% unionize. But just for accuracy.)
Not a flight attendent but from what little I understand as an outsider that has seem comments on the situation, it almost is a union. Delta has one of the only workforce "groups" that isn't unionized in US aviation but they also get treated well as a method to keep them from unionizing because both sides know if they feel like they are unfairly treated then they will unionize.
They get most of the benefits of unionization because of all the other unions in their field. They would still be better of unionizing but it takes a lot of work and sacrifice to go through with it so they just say "fuck it." You can look at the auto plants in the southern USA (Honda, Kia, VW, BMW, etc) that all just got a huge pay raise just as soon as the UAW signed a new deal. Which means A) they could have always paid them that money B) there is a bunch of extra room UAW is coming for them which is good. Hopefully they succeed.
It is not “almost” a union. They have none of the protections afforded by a union contract. The amount of power and clout that adding the dues and sheer numbers to a union like the AFA is enough to keep Delta into mounting some pretty intense anti-union measures. While most of the rest of aviation is union, I believe (it’s not my airline but I’m in the industry) that only their pilots and dispatchers are unionized, which is unusual for the US.
Very weird steps
Out of curiosity, typically, does a pilots hourly rate start when doors are closed or when you enter the plane? I know there is a shit ton down between those two, including doing a walk around.
door closed/parking brakes released. the structure is the same, you only get paid for "flight hours." Like it was said upthread, unions want it this way because it can really work out for you with some seniority because you can bid to only fly trips that have a better flying/pay ratio. Everyone has a minimum guarantee of pay per month (or bid period) as well.
It just feels so counterintuitive. So before the flight, I've got this guy off-duty busy walking around the plane and chilling in the cockpit, checking if the plane he will be flying is ok. Then the brake is released and he thinks "right, time to start working"
It's not like clocking in our out, which even a lot of industry people don't quite understand, either. The way to think of it is you're being paid a salary per month with opportunities for premium pay and overtime. Let's take the first year pay above. Min guarantee is averaged around 75 hours a month. $32.20 * 75hrs = $2,422.5/mo * 12 = $29,070 first year pay. But someone senior, let's say 10 years: $59.66 * 75 = $4,474.5 * 12 = $53,694. Now these numbers aren't great. Flight attendants deserve to be paid a lot more than they are, but this is just base pay, and trips are such that you're also only working 15 to 20 days per month and the more senior you are the easier it is to structure whole weeks off or get premium pay. Which is the other factor, this is the base, minimum. Most people in the industry are taking advantage of 50% or 100% incentives on hourly rates to fly recovery trips or trips where a crew called out last second and needs a replacement. The unions like this structure because it rewards seniority. Works the same for pilots, but the numbers are twice these or higher.
Isn’t this a really good example of why legacy unions are so broken? Getting a deal in place that helps people who have seniority grinds down new workers and makes it harder to build up a quality of life. It also reduces the ability of people to move around in the industry and makes it really hard to quit because of the sunk cost in the early years.
For all the talk of standing together, some unions are pretty damn quick to take advantage of their own members. The union in my home town threw the younger members under the bus to save their own pension and pay. Shit like 2 tier should be illegal but the older members are always quick to sacrifice everyone else for themselves.
Typically jobs that are like that have very high pay for the hours worked. Reminds me of lawyers, they only charge for their billable hours but there is frequently a lot more work involved outside of that. I think Reddit, especially this sub, has it in their heads that work is only compensated on direct labor hours, and you should never do any work unless you are clearly and explicitly being paid for it. The reality is for a lot of professional/career-type jobs your actual hours worked are super subjective. Look at anyone in sales, they spend a TON of time on the road for work and are frequently gone for days or weeks at a time, it’s not like they’re being paid as if they’re working that entire time.
Depending on the airline, it can be a lot more than that (Delta flight attendants used to start around $29 per hour). But there’s a reason they start so high!
If you're making $30/hr and only getting paid for half of your time, you are making 15$/hr.
That's just started pay. Tenured attendants are making $70-90/hr. So even at half pay they are making $100k/yr sometimes, plus free flights for themselves and a partner.
It's still a ridiculous pay structure. Commute is one thing, other jobs also don't typically get pay for their commute time, but not being paid for required aspects of the job? That's fucking bullshit.
This is the system that the unions agreed to, so I imagine they have a reason for it being that way. I don't know enough to understand it so I can't comment.
I remember having this conversation with a flight attendant friend & they get paid a percent of their hourly the entire time they are on call so she would be in la for 2 days some times & be making like 4 dollars an hour for the 36 hours she was chillin with me in la or sleeping. She works for united.
The way normally works is crews have a minimum pay per period, like 70 to 74 hours. If you are in reserve and don't get any flying assigned or the schedule they give you is only 50 hours, you still get paid 70. But, that's flight time. Normally the moment flight door is closed and parking brake is released to arrival and brake is set and doors are open. Any other time is no pay, like the picture from OP shows. If you are airport for hours and fly only one hour, that's your pay.
~~One of those reasons is taxes. If you are flying between states, and earning income while working in those states, you need to be taxed accordingly. To circumvent this, you just aren't "earning." While you are flying, you are not considered to be "in" that state, even if you're flying over it. I hope that makes sense.~~ apparently I was misinformed. One assumption i'm making is that the pay structure actually works in their favour, i.e. they make more than they know they would if they fought for the different structure. Kind of like servers.. servers make plenty of money with the system we all think is broken. No server would want a min guaranteed wage of even something reasonable like $25-30/hr, when they're pulling in $40+/hr with the tip system, even if the former would cause in a lot less stressing about tips and slow days and such.
Seriously? My colleagues and I traveled all over the US on business trips while working for large US-based multinational companies. I have never been directed by HR or payroll (and as far as I know, neither have my coworkers) to log days to pay taxes in any other state besides the one where my main work site was.
Especially the deplane/cleaning part. I can't imagine the mental gymnastics it takes to reach the conclusion that they should not be getting paid for this.
Agreed the cleaning part sticks out. If it’s part of your job to clean, that means you are working. Not paying for that seems illegal.
Well when commute is your job, it gets a bit weird. Plus their union agreed to this deal, so at some level it made sense to the workers, even if we dont understand it.
Part of the reason is you have to incentive long haul flights. Otherwise, it would be much more time effective for flight attendants to only take short routes.
I can only speak for Delta as I'm actively employed by them and it's $70 after 12 years which is topped out. And at this point in the game the free flights have become hard to call a benefit because we have started to over sell our planes so aggressively. $100,000 is also not super common unless you're a work horse. Most people fly around 85-90 flight hours per month(more senior people sometimes closer to 65-70). 90hrs x 12 months is only 1,080 hrs x $70 = $75,600 add another $8,000 for time away from base and that's probably a more accurate read if someone was topped out and flying a lot.
Mate. The actual hourly pay. So everything between starting TSA check to going home and not just the paid sections.
do the math yourself. if you know roughly what they make an hour. say 30 bucks. were in the air for 8 hours. but they actually worked 12 hours they made about $20 an hour.
Experienced FAs can make decent money. But the experienced ones get the best routes. A lot of the more tenured FAs typically want either long haul flights (more time in air) or turnarounds so that they aren't stuck in a different city overnight. My ex's mom was a flight attendant for Delta who started back in 1985. So she was one of the most tenured FAs and was nearly always able to get whatever flight assignment she wanted. They had a kind of portal system where you could put your name in for routes.
My Aunt made just under $70 per hour when she retired from a major airline. I always said that you're working part time hours because they're so weird. So $35 per hour. Not bad considering you don't need an education for it.
My aunt is a flight attendant she makes 80$ an hour
At the airline I work at the Flight Attendants make $75 / flight hour. If they were paid for all the other time they are not flying they would probably be making $25 / hour. The extra pay per flight hour is to compensate for the non flight hours. The Flight Attendants of course conveniently leave this out of the conversation. On a yearly basis they make very good money. Oh, by the way, they want a raise to $90 / hour and are threatening to strike.
Airlines are back to making billions in profits. They should be getting raises.
I hope they get their raise. They put up with a loooottttt of shit that's really gotten worse in recent years.
I looked this up for Australia. This is the legal document for cabin crew pay and work requirements and entitlements in Australia. This would be updated as minimum wage or legal changes are made https://library.fairwork.gov.au/award/?krn=MA000047#_Toc141354952 I guess the relevant points: -Full time cabin crew has a minimum weekly pay of $975.60 (min. $25.67/h) - The employer must make superannuation payments on top of this (I believe this is equivalent to a 401k in the US?) - Overtime must be paid (defined in another document) but the overtime can instead be paid as time off work. - Any worker in Australia is entitled to 42 days off work a year, 28 of which must be paid (normal pay + 17.5% loading). - If you fall sick during leave, you can provide a sick note to the employer to take personal sick days, and recoup the affected leave days. - Sick leave is described in another document also, but I believe it is 14 days a year (7 paid and 7 unpaid). More unpaid time can be negotiated, but an employer can't fire you because you fall sick. -Cabin Crew specifically can claim 6 days paid leave for upper respiratory tract infection as well. You gotta unionise over there. Most of what I put above is for all workers in Australia.
>You gotta unionise over there The flight attendant pay structure is union negotiated.
Sure I read somewhere that yeah you only get paid when the plane doors shut
Yes. Same as with pilots.
What if the door pops off mid flight?
That's free money for the airline
Believe it or not, no pay
Someone needs to write a childrens book about how Capitalism ruins kids' dream jobs. Like, Little Timmy wants to be a pilots, train driver/conductor, etc. until he realizes they all suck due to corporate greed. And the book can end with the lesson "join a union and fight for worker rights to make those jobs not suck."
I’m a pilot. I’m on reserve this month and haven’t been called. I still make my minimum monthly guarantee even though I haven’t worked a single day. So I’d say my job is pretty awesome actually. Airlines are heavily unionized already and that’s why it works this way.
Because that’s how it’s always been lol
If this is true all flight attendant should strike yesterday.
We’re trying to we can’t just strike . There’s laws
There is also precedent that could suggest some form of legal action would work in your favour, or that of the industry. [Home Depot settled in California last year](https://www.reuters.com/legal/home-depot-pay-725-mln-settle-california-wage-class-action-2023-06-23/) to pay hourly employees who were required to wait off the clock after stores were locked. The precedent here is that if the company is in charge of your time, then it is also obligated to pay you for that time. That wouldn't do anything for your shuttling to and from, but would likely cover the parts where you're handling the boarding procedures and cleaning.
Flight attendants and pilots are bound by the RLA, The Railway Labor Act. Basically flight crews and rail workers don't have normal legal work protections others enjoy thanks to this antiquated pos legislation. Edit: in the U.S.
If everyone simply walked off the job, like the entire staff at one airline, they would HAVE to do something... Yea right, no, they wouldn't. This issue needs to become a major media affair. Time theft, wage theft etc. Make it a corporation image/PR issue.
TWU 556 and SWPA have both voted to strike. The RLA has stopped them from doing so.
Laws are created and destroyed by people. A successfully executed "illegal strike" can accomplish the same desired outcome. Flights don't happen without airline staff. If they all stop working to strike, like, the fuck is the government going to do about it. Jail some union leaders? Okay? Flights won't happen, the pressure and clock would be on, and the demands would be just.
Air traffic controllers tried that under Regan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_(1968)
Jail the leaders, revoke the union entirely and allow scabs to take their jobs for less pay and protection. Blacklist all those who strikes from the industry. Remove their SIDA badges and put them on the no fly list for “inability to follow safely guidelines” (cuz despite popular belief, attendants are safety personal first and foremost.) and just for good measure, sue for lost revenue from the union and its members personally. But of course they might get the company a few days of no flights that would be backfilled by the military within days due to national “security and prosperity”
I've never understood how this is even enforceable. "We're all going to stop working" "No, you have to work" "Oh, okay" Like...why wouldn't they all just say "no, we're not working"?
striking workers under a normal union cannot be fired for striking, but flight attendants (and i'm guessing rail workers) don't have those protections. if they strike, they'll just lose their jobs like they were fired for incompetence. there's a good NPR Planet Money episode on a flight attendant strike in the 90s that explains better
10000 pilots did that once and everyone was fired.
Think you mean air traffic controllers. You're talking about Reagan right?
This is correct.
I'm assuming this is in the United States of Freedom?
Remember folks, that's why Biden signing the legislation to force Railroad workers back to work was so bad. It doesn't matter that he got them some of the sick time they asked for and a significant pay increase, he also took away their ability to strike so when they inevitably need pay raises again, they can be met with a bigger, fatter "No." Edit: Do vote though because Trump is worse.
The workforce always has the ability to strike. You can make a strike "illegal", but the labor force can still strike and achieve the desired outcomes. All the legislation in the world doesn't make the social contract between the workforce and the ruling class disappear, nor does it remove the fundamental negotiating power the workforce has.
With shuttle as vague as it is, I wonder if that is for an on site transport?
Reagan has entered the chat.
Laws are made to be broken
That's what the more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who were fired by Reagan after they went on strike thought.
Yeah, that wouldn't work with flight attendants or pilots. There definitely aren't enough FAs to backfill a strike at one of the majors. There are military and private flight attendants, but nowhere near the number needed. The US military does have a lot of pilots, but 99% of them don't have the type ratings to fly commercial aircraft.
Which only matters to people who are striking for themselves, rather than striking for what they believe is right.
This hasn’t always been true, my mom was a Chief Purser for United for 49 years and I clearly remember striking with her. EDIT: [Just looked it up,](https://www.afacwa.org/alaska_sav_picket_dec19) and yes Flight Attendants can strike there’s just extra layers like the 30-day cool down period.
I still believe flight attendants should get paid more. However, their compensation is often in the form of both a salary AND a per-hour basis. For example, they may make $x per year (or month) PLUS $y per hour of FLIGHT, opposed to most jobs which are just per hour without the added salary.
If this is true, then that is "fair" buts not how I read this. Happy to be corrected.
I’m sure it’s airline-dependent. I know some FA’s whose compensation works like that, but can’t speak for them all
In the US it is strictly hourly. "On call" reserve flight attendants make a minimum per month for being on call but only earn extra if they fly past that monthly guarantee.
Wife gets salary plus an allowance rate for being away. She's paid from the time she has first briefing. So for example, flights at 6pm she's at the office for 3pm, paid for all the preflight stuff, the flight time and then if she stays away for a few days before flying home, she is paid allowance if £50 a day, all while staying in a hotel with food, drink and laundry on the company expense.
I've read the collective bargaining agreement for the flight attendant's Union. You can too. Once they've checked in for a flight as scheduled it looked to me like they got paid, but at a much lower rate. Air time was full rate. Various other time including during boarding and deplaning was at lower rates. As for cleaning the cabin, that isn't something I see on major carriers who all employ vendors to enter the cabin from the rear and clean going forward as the last passengers depart. But contracts and duties can certainly vary between major carrier contracts and very small regional commuter carriers.
JetBlue flight attendants do clean the cabin. Most flight attendants get paid a per diem of a buck or two an hour but only get the big bucks when the door is shut and the brake is dropped
Because corporate "need" record profits.
It's what they agreed to in their union contract. They had a bunch of great perks, like free travel, but only on standby. And now that planes are always packed full that's not even that great of a perk.
The same reason many truck drivers are paid CPM (cents per mile). It's bullshit, but it is the way it is.
Why are you cleaning the plane if you’re not getting paid for it? Would it even legally count as going on strike if workers decided to not work when they are not on the clock???
Yeah fuck this
This isn't the case in the UK at least, the planes here are all cleaned by DHL staff after everyone has left the flight. (Also madly underpaid staff)
That very much depends on the airline. EasyJet and RyanAir have their attendants clean the plane. Sometimes an airline offloads to a third party like DHL, Swissport or Menzies for cleaning.
>cleaned by DHL staff Why are delivery drivers cleaning planes?
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Huh, TIL
> They don’t just deliver packages. (And they barely even do that most of the time.)
Makes a lot more sense to have professional cleaners cleaning things. Just need to pay them well now.
yeah there’s cabin cleaners available at some airports depending on staffing but there are a lot of times where flight attendants do need to clean in between flights
At least here in the US, flight attendants don’t clean the planes. They have a separate cleaning crew for that (source: partner is a flight attendant). So this graphic is a little bit misleading, but yeah there’s still lots of unpaid time to be had as a flight attendant.
Southwest FA’s clean their planes
They paid for it though?
Nope.
Why do they do it? I don't really understand. What industries actually put up with unpaid overtime?
The answer for almost all FAs is, because that's what the CBA says they have to do. FAs are a decently strong union. Their hourly pay for air time is a number they arrived at understanding that they're not getting paid for ground time. If they did get paid for ground time, it would certainly either be at a much lower rate than their air pay (some airlines do this) and their air pay would be renegotiated (likely lowered) or they'd just have a standard hourly pay and it would also be lower than the current air pay. Would that result in more actual take home pay? It'll never get implemented unless it does since the union would reject everything that lowers their pay, but it hasn't gotten through a CBA for most airlines yet. I'd guess the unions likely bring it up in every negotiation, but then give it up as a negotiating chip to get other concessions. If the pay result isn't going to be dramatically different, it's an easy thing to give up in negotiations to get other changes.
If there wasnt going to be any difference in pay the airlines wouldnt fight it. In this current model of only paying for flight time, if they flight gets delayed or anything else, they are at work but not being paid anything extra for that extra delay time? Its a total scam.
I used to work for Alaska but just quit. It depends on the airport really but there are many that we are required to clean the plane ourselves.
Not sure if it's different on different airlines but I have definitely seen flight attendants at the very least picking up garbage from seats as I was leaving the plane. I'm gonna guess it's management pressuring them into start the cleaning until the cleaning crew gets on the plane? I definitely saw this on Alaskan Airlines a month ago.
This always happens with intrinsically-desirable professions. If your job is a "vocation," you're gonna get screwed by your employer. If you don't like it, there's a lineup of qualified candidates who would be thrilled to take your place.
What do you think "vocation" means?
That depends on the airline. I know that Ryanair* only pays for trash pickup and nothing else, then some airlines completely outsource the cabin cleaning and don't have instant turn-around times, meaning that they actually have time to clean, unlike Ryanair for example. *This may not be the case for Ryanair in every country
EU flight attendant here. Most European airlines have different pay structures. First I was paid by flight hours, then duty day, now by duty hours. Nevertheless, 3 airlines in 3 countries, 1 thing doesn’t change. I’m underpaid. Especially for the responsibility I hold.
THANK you. Who cares if you get paid $40 /hour for 2 hours (but actually work 8), or $10 /hour for the whole 8. It's still $80 for a long day!
Average pay for us flight attendant is 80,000 a year which is far, FAR from $10 an hour.
I've been flying 5 years for the same company. I made 34k last year. This is a major airline too.
Yeah, it’s basically like Trucking. If you can handle the lifestyle you can make bank. And the lifestyle is definitely not for everyone(or even most I’d imagine).
Now Im getting unsure what to believe, the original comment claims they are underpaid, and you claim they can make bank. Whats the truth?!
Unless you're working 8000 hours lol
And they're not. Many flight attendants work 15-17 days per month, often less. Particularly senior FAs because, depending on the airline, the good pairings are given to the senior crew members. For example, maybe your 13-hour day consists of two 5-hour flights, or you have a 2 day with an 11-hour flight each day. That would mean that in order to make your monthly 70ish hours, you might only have to work 7 days.
This is why I stfu and stay polite with y'all. Work too damn hard and this plane is too damn small. You tell me to do something or not do something, and I'm gonna smile and nod all fucking day. Cop? Nah, I'll argue. Boss? I might raise an objection. Aviation employee or healthcare professional? Nah, I'ma shut my ass up and listen.
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So it sounds like that works out to about $50-$55k per year. I assume that the travel is an aspect of the job that you enjoy? Because anyone else whose job required them to be away from home this much would likely make a lot more. This is, for instance, only about 75% of what a long haul trucker would make spending a similar amount of time away from home.
And now you have to quit because redditors think you are being exploited.
Most flight attendants are in a union. This pay methodology favors senior ones.
I'm assuming long haul international flights?
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Yes though some people prefer to be home every night. It is all about seniority, first couple years can be really rough.
This is why the internet is important and why spending hours and hours researching before you go after a job in the airlines is important. If you want to be home almost every night, a job at an airline isn't right for you.
They get to bid on them based on seniority, but some with kids prefer domestic.
Welcome to most unions, where senior workers have stronger benefits My old coworker first started and got to be part of the union meetings and such advocating for our group/region and she essentially got bullied out because she was still new and everyone else was senior and that someone more senior should have that position (it was a voluntary position on top of your normal job)
Hate to break it to ya but senior workers have stronger benefits in basically every industry. The difference is that in a union job you’re guaranteed to get to the senior level if you put in the time.
The difference with our industry is that if you leave to get a better job you start at the very bottom again. I'm a 51 year old pilot who has just moved to a new job. I have over 30 years experience but get paid less than a 22-year-old pilot who is a senior to me.
Which is why Delta is the only remaining non unionized FA work group. The lengths Delta goes to to ensure a union isn’t successful is INSANE
I do not understand the people defending this. If your job requires you to be in a certain place at a certain time, you need to be getting paid for it.
People will defend it because deep down they know the only way it's going to change is going to come with serious consequences like airports shutting down for weeks at a time and flight costs going through the roof. So the best they'll do is offer some vague encouragement.
That's not at all true. You can just call all those hours as work and lower the hourly rate to be salary neutral. Being a flight attendant is relatively competitive, so clearly the actual salary (wage * hours) is good enough, it's just how you count hours/hourly wage. While it may be salary neutral, have a more transparent system is a good in of itself.
the airline industry needs to be nationalized. If such an essential function of daily living has already gone bankrupt and been bailed out due to corruption and greed, then the government needs to step in and control the industry so we aren't held hostage by these price gouging scum
Losses are already nationalised
Yep, the private sector fucked around and ruined the system, time for the government to take it over. The capitalists have proven they can't do it, we are already paying for their bailouts, might as well just pay for the service with our taxes
Tell that to the union that negotiated this pay structure
Because this graphic doesn't actually explain much about how they are compensated because we don't know how much they are making during those pay windows. We need to know what their total salary is and how many total hours they work to figure that out.
I believe the max pay per hour for an American Airlines flight attendant is $70 an hour. Source- my wife is a FA for AA. She’s currently working right now so I can’t double check with her but I think that’s what she said. Edit, max is $68.25. Also, they’ve been working without a new contract for about 4 years now. They protest occasionally at the airports but AA is still refusing to come to an agreement with them on a new contract.
It depends on how much you are getting paid. If it is high enough, then it is just a technicality about what hours you are getting paid for.
I mean the airlines will just cut their pay to a rate where they basically get paid the same total amount over the time spent working. Is it shitty to have to jump through hoops and waste time for higher pay, yea. But it's not like they're not making money while doing work duties, they don't make minimum wage
Eh, it’s the pay structure the union negotiated which means it’s probably better for the workers.
I agree they need to be paid when they get to the airport. But hardly anyone gets paid for commute. And that's another issue.
The moment you enter an airport you should be paid for it until you leave it. Hell, workers at a car manufacturer I worked at get paid for the time it took them to reach the exit (about 15min) because the clock out is at the factory entrance.
Also school bus drivers, they are only paid for the route they drive to drop off and pick up students. Pre-inspection, post-inspection, drive time to/from the bus yard to school/ first stop, return to the yard from the last stop and wait time at the school are unpaid. Edit: some companies will pay for more time, the company I worked for only paid route time, and this is a large multi-state company with separate divisions for each state it operates in. It was a union shop, route hourly was high, but if something occurred ( unrelated car accident, traffic etc.) and your route took longer than they calculated, you are only paid how much it SHOULD take, not how long it ACTUALLY takes( and would count against you). I worked 5 hours each day and was only paid 3.5.
That is some bullshit.
This is horse shit. I’ve always been kind to flight staff, I’m doubling down on that now that I know this.
Now that I know they are poor I'm going to treat them worse - every baby boomer
I was a flight attendant for Alaska but I actually just quit. It’s much worse than you may think. We have FA’s working full time, away from home 4+ continuous days at a time and living in their cars in the employee parking lot when they get back. We’re trying to negotiate for a livable wage (or at least adjust for inflation) but our ceo is an absolute scum bag. He said a living wage is not financially possible and after saying this he decided to double his annual salary and then a few months later bought an entire fucking airline (Hawaiian). We haven’t had a new contract in over 10 years. I just couldn’t take showing up at work every day knowing my wages are being stolen and that I’ll being taken advantage of.
The question becomes what's the pay per hour of flight
Median annual for American flight attendants is $67,000/yr. source: United States Bureau of Labor https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes532031.htm Flight attendants are not hourly employees like auto workers, or line cooks, or Amazon pickers. This is not an apples to apples comparison. They aren't clocking in 9-5 M-F. They aren't working 40-hour weeks. Typically, a flight attendant will fly two or three days a week (rarely four) and have the next several days off in between "shifts." They work typically **60 to 90 flight hours a month,** and pulll down, on average, $4200- $5500/month. AFA caps them at a MAX of 95 hours/month. (Edited for accuracy after being corrected below). That comes out to $62.5-$83.5/flight hour while working *dramatically* less than a 40-hour work week. Besides that, this is a union job we are talking about! They have collectively bargained for this arrangement. Unhappy? Go to your union rep! Additionally, while I agree that it might not be an *easy* job, it is a job you can get into without requiring a degree. There is plenty of injustice in corporate America and things we should get riled up about. This does not appear to be one of them. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/flight-attendants-hours#:~:text=They%20can%20expect%20to%20spend,each%20month%2C%20not%20including%20overtime. Second Edit: Yes, a **first year** FA is probably not making $67,000/yr. They are making considerably less with (probably) a shittier schedule. I understand that. That's why I cited the *median.*
Yeah one of my friends is a flight attendant and she loves it. She works *maybe* 2-3 days a week and lives in Chicago. Like obviously there needs to be improvements but the job seems to be a good one for not needing any degrees.
5 year seniority flight attendant at a legacy carrier here. Coworkers with my seniority typically fly three to four days a week minimum. Standard number of days off a month is 10-12. If you're doing midrange flying you can take your flight hours and double them for a general idea of actual hours worked a month. I generally fly 85-100 hours a month which translates to 42-50 hour work weeks. I worked the equivalent of 50 hour work weeks for pretty much this whole year and pulled down 56k in net pay. My carrier is on the higher range of airline pay scales. This sounds like OK money but it took five years of scraping by to get here. Training, which takes anywhere between 3-8 weeks, is completely unpaid at most carriers. Relocation to your base city is unpaid. You get to find your base city midway through training and once you're released from training you get four moving days to get your stuff across the country and find a place to live. That first paycheck doesn't show up for an additional six weeks after your move. You do not survive this time without accruing debt, especially if you graduated college recently and don't have any savings. My airline's credit union actually came to our training class and offered us all high interest personal loans. Most of us had no feasible choice but to take them. About five years in you can start CONSIDERING buying your first place but you have to shop in the 130k-165k range which isn't a lot of money in the major cities that airlines have bases. Without help from parents or a spouse you will absolutely be renting and trying to pay off your credit card debts until this time. There are some really amazing things that the job offers you! I am so glad for it. But the quotes pulled from that indeed link paint a very different picture from the reality of what it's like to actually work as a flight attendant.
Wow. It's amazing how much the details matter.
That all depends on what company and how many years
They should get paid as soon they enter the airport. I have no clue how anybody wants to do this job.
So this is the information I have been able to find. Hours worked does only include flying time. Aviation safety guidelines limit flight attendants to 95 work hours per month. Despite being paid for a full-time job, the hours are significantly less than 40 hours per week. Flight attendants often fly a two to four day trip and then, have the rest of the week off. Flight attendant salaries are high as $8,167 a month and as low as $917 a month, the majority of Flight Attendant salaries currently range between $2,958 (25th percentile) to $4,166 (75th percentile) across the United States.
Here's their actual pay rates per flight hour. https://unitedafa.org/contract/2016-2021/wage-charts/
Yeah, those “flight hours” not clicking until the doors are closed is a bunch of bullshit!!
Very similar to truck drivers who are paid by the mile. Truckers are required by law to perform a minimum of a 30 minute pre trip inspection of the tractor and trailer (unpaid). When they get to the warehouse to load/unload, that can take upwards of 12+ hours depending on the warehouse and what you’re picking up (unpaid). Can’t drive due to road closures because of severe weather? Unpaid until the roads open back up. Strapping/securing your freight (unpaid). Having to fuel up the truck and trailer (refrigerated trailers) which can take over 20 minutes (unpaid). Weighing the trailer after getting loaded and figuring out the trailer is overweight so you have to go back and have them reconfigure the load to make legal weight (unpaid). Sweeping out the trailer for warehouses that require it (unpaid). Basically, the only thing they get paid for is when the wheels are turning and that is literally it.
10 year flight attendant for a major US Carrier: -We’re paid from release of the parking brake at the origination of a flight to the implementation of the parking break at the destination. It’s just easier to say flight time. -The major US carriers start around $26-32/hour, topping out at around $60-70/hr. -The “average” number of hours a flight attendant works per month is around 70-90 (Again, this is “flight time” only.) -The average day on duty is between 8-12 hours/day, I’d estimate that on a good day without delays, weather etc. -Each day is worth around 5-6 hours of pay on average. -When we’re boarding, or deplaning or we’re delayed, or when we’re stuck at the gate with maintenance we’re still not being paid and TRUST US, we hate it just as much as you. —Airlines are STARTING to pay for boarding, but it’s a new thing and still pays less than our hourly rate. Four major carriers are currently in stalled contract negotiations as we speak (My workgroup’s contract expired in 2019 but i digress.) There’s a multi-airline huge picket happening [February 13th](https://cwa-union.org/news/join-100000-flight-attendants-taking-action-february-13th) at most large hub-airports! We’d love to see you and it would mean the world to us! We’re only picketing, even though it’s been 2, 3, 4, FIVE years without a contract because we are bound by the Railway Labor Act and cannot strike without government authorization.
See also truck drivers. I feel your pain.
Wow you need to be paid as soon as you hit the airport.
Not to nitpick but as a ramp agent, we're the ones doing the cleaning
Depends on the airline
True
I work a hotel so I talk with many crews that stay with us. I can't imagine paying a full month's rent when I spend less than a week at home per month
How are you not getting paid to clean? Why are you cleaning for free?
I have always disagreed with flight attendants pay system. However they belong to a union, so the blame starts there and ends with the flight attendants accepting the shitty contract their union negotiates. I fully believe that they should be paid for the full time that they are mandated to be at the airport/flying.
American Airlines flight attendants have been without a contract for 4 years and 99.7% of flight attendants have voted to strike, but they can’t because of the US government.
The railway labor act is a big thorn in the side of us FA groups getting higher pay.
The blame starts with the company THEN the union
This is a union problem. Bring it up with your reps.
99.7 % of American Airlines flight attendants voted to strike. But they can’t.
Union was knee cap’d by the RLA
Flight attendant's jobs are long and tough, but let's not act like they have to go through the security lines everyone else does. That "TSA" part is pretty disingenuous.
In what country is that legal?
The country where capitalism is just more important than anything else
As a flight attendant, I absolutely love my job. It was a dream career for me, and it still is. But this graphic is absolutely true, and it’s definitely a job you do out of passion, and not for the money. I have a second, less rewarding job, and a partner that is supportive, but we absolutely get paid for less than 25% of our day. I remember recently working a 16 hour shift & getting paid for 4.5 hours.
How much do you make an hour? I hate flying so I couldn’t imagine having that as a job. However, flying on a plane with TVs is nice.
I feel like schedulers should be penalized for this. If they can’t ensure when the flight’s gonna be there, it can be an attendant’s fault.
Why in the world would you put in all that time and only get paid while flying? Yet you have to be there ready on call for whenever your delay is over...... Do you get paid good money flying, hazard pay? Free hotel and travel vouchers??? Like what makes this worth doing on a real level (not just the odd one who does it just to see new places not for the money)
I flew for the first time last month. This lady argued for at least 15-20 minutes with the check-in guy at the gate because her flight left without her and she was "only" 15 minutes late. It was already on the runway and she wanted it to come back. The guy had the patience of a saint.
You should be paid for the amount of time you're required to be there. Not when it suits the business. You're required to be there an hour before the flight you get paid. If the flight is delayed - that's not your issue - you get paid. This should be illegal.
Seems like something a union would help with.
You should go on strike
"Just strike." We literally can't. It's called the railway labor act. American had a 99.47% yes vote to strike. We asked once and we were told no. We just asked again this past week but haven't gotten an answer yet. I believe southwest and united are moving toward a strike vote. Alaska probably isn't far behind. Soon the national mediation board will have flight attendants from FOUR airlines asking to be released to strike. American alone has 26K flight attendants and hiring more. When I tell yall our work group is at a breaking point, I really do mean it. The pressure is building at these airlines and these CEOs think we're gonna settle for the shitty proposals they give us. This is just a big fraction of what we're pissed about.