Why Were Air Canada Flight Attendants Striking? Boarding Pay Was a Central Issue

Business|Why Were Air Canada Flight Attendants Striking? Boarding Pay Was a Big Issue.

Flight attendants for Air Canada ended a three-day strike on Tuesday, allowing the airline to slowly restart flying.

Details about the deal were sparse but the flight attendants union suggested that it had secured a benefit that had become a big focus of contract talks: pay for work done on the ground before and after flights take off and land.

“Unpaid work is over,” the union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents more than 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada and a subsidiary, said in a brief statement. “We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”

The strike, which began on Saturday, resulting in more than 2,000 flight cancellations, had brought fresh attention to a common airline pay practice. Many airlines have for years paid flight attendants based on how many hours they work when the cabin doors are closed, not including the time it takes to get passengers on and off planes.

How do other airlines handle boarding pay?

For decades, most flight attendants in North America were not paid for boarding. In 2022, Delta Air Lines became the first major U.S. carrier to pay employees for that time, a change it introduced during a campaign to unionize the company’s flight attendants. American Airlines and Alaska Airlines, where attendants were represented by unions, have since started paying for boarding, too.

But boarding pay remains uncommon. United Airlines has agreed to offer boarding pay in contract talks with flight attendants taking place now.

And on Monday, flight attendants for PSA Airlines, an American Airlines subsidiary, protested at various U.S. airports, calling for better wages and boarding pay. Regional carriers like PSA operate shorter flights, meaning flight attendants there likely spend a greater share of their time on duty during boarding than at other airlines.

At American, Alaska and Delta, flight attendants are paid about half of their hourly rate during boarding. Air Canada agreed to match that in its latest offer to the flight attendants, but the union criticized that proposal, saying it excluded some types of work.

How are delayed and canceled flight handled?

The rules for compensating flight attendants for delayed and canceled trips vary by airline.

Many flight attendants who are represented by unions are guaranteed at least some pay if they report for duty and a trip is canceled or is delayed for a long time. Companies typically try to reassign flight attendants in such cases, too. If a trip is canceled with more advanced notice, though, a flight attendant may receive little to no compensation at some airlines.

At American, if passengers board a flight that is later canceled, flight attendants are still paid for boarding. If passengers are asked to leave the plane and then return, flight attendants would receive boarding pay for each time passengers were let on the plane.

Why has boarding pay been introduced only recently?

Boarding pay is fairly new in part because flight attendants have not had enough bargaining power in recent decades to get airlines to agree to it.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks dealt a huge financial blow to airlines that lasted for years. A decade later, several airlines were forced to seek bankruptcy protection or sell themselves to other companies.

During those tumultuous years, flight attendants, pilots and other workers were generally fighting to protect existing benefits, revive ones that had been taken away or eke out small improvements.

In the years since the coronavirus pandemic, however, many airlines have done incredibly well financially, emboldening labor unions to demand better pay and benefits.

Boarding has also become more onerous than it once was. Planes are more consistently crowded. Airlines expect flights to move more quickly. And passengers have started bringing more carry-on bags to avoid the checked-bag fees that many airlines have introduced in recent decades. An increase in disruptive passengers early in the recovery from the pandemic made that work even more stressful.

“It can be the most chaotic part of the day,” said Paul Hartshorn, a flight attendant and spokesman for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union that represents flight attendants at American Airlines.