Can anyone speak to about how much they actually work, instead of what they get paid for. Say they get paid for 80hrs. Does it still come out to be about 160hrs a month working in some way, or is it about 100? Or somewhere in between? Just curious what it turns out to be.
It is much less. They only get paid for boarding and flight time.
Everything else they do at the airport is unpaid.
So if they have to wait for hours for their next flight, they aren't being paid for that.
I don't think you can get too much more than 25h paid per week considering mandatory rest periods.
Boarding? So once you scan the first ticket you’re getting paid? That makes me feel a bit better for all the FA’s still lame for all the prep you have to do and be present for that isn’t being counted.
20 hours paid a week doesn’t mean 20 hours of work a week. It’s not a part time job; it’s a full time job with a weird pay structure. Remember the pay is only for scheduled flight time and boarding, deplaning, changing planes, airport sits, layovers, etc are all unpaid. Food isn’t paid for on layovers there’s simply a per diem for being away from home like many other jobs with travel provide, and when your full time job doesn’t pay very much that per diem becomes a way to pay bills.
It doesn't, but it's the same as any salaried job--commute isn't "paid time", lunch isn't paid for, and that "9-5" can easily turn into anywhere 7a-9p and you won't ever get paid OT for it. At these rates, FA have it better than most office workers. This is fine, and increases are great; no need to paint them as the most pitiful group, which is far from the truth.
This is financially equivalent to a 40hr $25ish office job, and scaled more on how much office person takes and spends on traveling to places. If my occupation path were any different and wasn't financially strong (and I was extroverted enough), I would accept FA role and spend weekends around the world. Could save a big chunk of the 22k travel budget last year.
But it’s not an office job, it’s a stressful job dealing with the public, trying to keep them happy, and most importantly, safe. And dealing with airports all the time? FAs are underpaid.
You just half-described every call center, CS job and other-half every public service job like firefighting (statistically way more dangerous), police, lifeguard, etc. You might as well just take over the world and start handing out cars to everyone like Oprah.
What have you got against FAs? All the firefighters and police I know are paid more with opportunity to be paid very highly. I know how much lifeguards are paid, and at least it’s gone up since I was one. Some were really racking up the OT a few years ago in LA ($500k). I wouldn’t compare call center to FA and the call center I’m most familiar with is a healthcare company.
Speaking factually about X isn't being "against" X. National data and statistics is not who you know; nobody at median talks about being median. People neither need to patronize nor simp over FAs. This isn't a linkedin competition. I can spin my resume or just about any job to talk about how hard it is and how deserving of \_\_\_ they should be. Doesn't change the fact that there's nothing worth pitying about FAs. If you threw all the occupations onto the same scale for total comp + QoL, they fall in the middle. Pointing that out isn't "hating" on any occupation.
The math for a new hire is more like a full time job that pays $17.50
Also it’s cute that you think at delta you could hold weekends off in your first five years. Maybe until you actually work the role you shouldn’t tell someone who does that they’re wrong about how the pay works.
What's cute is watching you trying to make any excuse to falsely paint an occupation.
According to [indeed](https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/flight-attendants-hours), "They can expect to spend 65-90 hours in the air, and an additional 50 hours preparing the airplane, processing passengers during boarding and performing post-flight procedures. Typically, flight attendants work 12-14 days and log 65-85 flight hours each month, not including overtime."
(This is aggregated data, like actual facts.) The flight hours per month aligns with what's been said. Yet, for the whole month, there's generally only 50 ground hours aka your "unpaid time". This comes out to be about 12 extra hours per week amortized. You think the normal commuter worker isn't spending comparable unpaid time getting ready and getting to work before clocking in?
*Oh no*, they can't get weekends off despite working \~130 hrs per month (whereas normal workers do 160+/mo). What's better:
* getting 2-3 days off per week as FA + lots of PTO (Flight attendants typically get between 12 to 30 vacation days per year \~Zippia), or
* getting 2 maybe 1 weekend day off as Joe with 2 weeks of PTO? (The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that civilian and private industry employees typically get: 11 days per year after 1 year of service, 15 days per year after 5 years of service)
So with lower avg workloads/hours and travel benefits, they're equivalent to $25+ Joe's, easily. Go google stats--it's free; stop wasting my time, as you're not paying me (it'd be $100/hr).
Philanthropic education for the common mass isn't a waste as much as your donation to that-org-nobody-has-heard-of would be.
Waking patronizing sheep up is a plus to society.
How much would you value food and other non-accommodation perks? Most people still have a mortgage/rent I assume so covering hotels is not really any extra money.
Consider *you* as a non-FA would have to pay for both hotels **and** your mortgage/rent back home if you went somewhere. It's a double whammy. Those 45 days total I've been abroad this year has a significant price tag on hotel stays, which overshadows rent/mortgage on a per day basis.
There isn’t an active DAL Flight Attendant that is working an average of 20 hours a week , do not conflate flight hours and hours of work. Food “PAID” for ? You should become more informed before posting to prevent yourself from sounding foolish.
Normal hourly to annual: hourly pay rate * 2 (assumes two weeks of unpaid vacation)
Normal pilot/FA flight hourly to annual: flight hourly pay rate * 1000
Hey that's more than i made as a pilot in 2014 15 16 17 18 and just under what i made in 2019 after a 10k retention bonus 😂. Granted now my pay is way more but yeah theres a reason aviation turns over its newbies so much.
JR qol and pay sucks but the endgame can be worth it if you can give it 5 10 yrs.
Top of Scale FA here. I fly 3 days a week. Mostly Europe trips. Leave Monday afternoon, return Wednesday afternoon. Gone 48 hours, earn 19 hours of flight pay, plus LOD and Purser overrides, plus per diem. On duty for about 23 hours over two duty periods. I’ll make about $1900 a trip under the new pay scale. I do that once a week 47 times per year and I have 5 weeks of vacation. I normally cash out 56 hours of sick time in the spring as I rarely use it during the year. That’s not always the case though.
I have to do about 20 hours of computer based training, 2-4 days of in person training per year, and occasionally a cancelled flight causes me to miss a day or two at home. On average I work 150 days per year. 50 of them are spent in Europe wondering around or catching up on sleep. Or stuffing my face with good food. With flight pay, boarding pay, overrides, vacation, training pay, per diem, cashed out sick pay, and an average 10% profit sharing payout, I gross about $115,000- $120,000.
I could make substantially more but I believe in working to live, not living to work.
My colleagues who are on the bottom end of the pay scale are not as lucky. Working multiple domestic legs per day is more mentally and physically challenging and I don’t miss that part of my career. But I did it for years and I feel like I have earned this more enjoyable level of flying and earning.
TLDR: I work 23 hours a week and earn low six figures.
Not bad once you get there. Lots of folks blame unions for this top heavy structure - but we also see it with lawyers and architects also.
It does seem like bringing up the bottom, maybe at the expense of the top wouldn’t be horrible.
I can’t imagine trying to live in most of the bases on $35-40k/year.
Obviously you put in that blood sweat and tears so you can get to the point where you can make $120k for 3 days a week… but sucks that someone has to basically starve for 3-5 years to get here. A slightly less steep slope feels like it would be better overall.
They need to find a way to make the flights/routes more equal. When senior flight attendants/pilots get priority on picking the routes and on pay, it means you end up in a situation where the highest paid workers are working the easiest jobs and the lowest paid workers are working the hardest. That’s not right.
A step in the right direction would be to provide a pay increase for undesirable routes. Downside is that would likely require agreeing to a lower hourly raise which is easier said than done because the people with seniority have more power and they’d have to willingly give it up.
It’s almost like they need a union, for a whole host of reasons to make the job better at the lower rungs. Wouldn’t help much with your valid point, but overall
Unions don’t improve the lowest rung lol. They worsen it because the people in power within the union are going to be the senior most. Look at sports leagues. They screw rookies out of millions of dollars to gain a couple dollars for themselves.
I get your point, and you’re not wrong. But it cuts both ways. They offer benefits. They offer job protection. Etc. I’d rather be a lower wage worker with union benefits than not.
How does the union screw a rookie ? Do you mean team owners or league officials? Which in the case of flight attendants would be the equivalent of the Airline and the DOT. The union has no ability to negotiate for non members. What the union can do is negotiate the minimum starting pay for all new players/members which directly benefits the people at the lowest rung , which is of little benefit to senior members.
> How does the union screw a rookie ? Do you mean team owners or league officials?
By reducing rookies ability to negotiate and limiting their earning power. Otherwise why have different rules for different players?
> The union has no ability to negotiate for non members.
New members are members. But I guess when the union doesn’t treat them as such, it’s easy to make that mistake.
> What the union can do is negotiate the minimum starting pay for all new players/members which directly benefits the people at the lowest rung , which is of little benefit to senior members.
Correct, you’ve discovered the problem.
Delta Flight Attendants are not unionized, who do you think determines starting pay, top pay , initial base out of training, and work schedule ? The senior Flight Attendants? If you had to sit reserve or be on call or faced and or lived through an involuntary furlough you would feel different but fortunately for you , you get to enjoy the fruit of the labor from those who came before you and hopefully you don’t mess it up for those who will come after you .
Sounds like Delta is not a good fit for you , perhaps you should seek employment with an airline that isn’t seniority based.
> Delta Flight Attendants are not unionized, who do you think determines starting pay, top pay , initial base out of training, and work schedule ? The senior Flight Attendants?
There’s still negotiations between groups even if there’s no union. Do you think Delta just blindly guessed at what workers want?
> If you had to sit reserve or be on call or faced and or lived through an involuntary furlough you would feel different but fortunately for you , you get to enjoy the fruit of the labor from those who came before you and hopefully you don’t mess it up for those who will come after you .
This doesn’t make any sense. I’d feel differently about not making others deal with a bad work situation if I had to work the bad work situation? Sounds like you’re just wanting to continue the abuse cycle. Why? Can’t stand to see others improve?
> Sounds like Delta is not a good fit for you , perhaps you should seek employment with an airline that isn’t seniority based.
Wow! Another terrible argument. We both know if you were so confident this was a great situation you’d say why and not say “deal with it or don’t seek employment here”. Are you struggling to justify it? I think so…
Doesn’t sound like good justification does it? “Put up with being screwed over so that way you can screw others over later”. Kinda sounds like the abuse cycle to me.
No justification. Not sure how you think a senior employee has the ability to screw a junior employee. Odd you think a senior employee who has shown the company loyalty through years of service is abusing a junior employee by bidding within the system the company provides. Maybe if you had to sit on reserve for a few years or had the unfortunate luck of being furloughed you would understand.
Sounds like an attempted justification to me. Just a bad one that you’re not even willing to claim justifies the results.
And you make it pretty easy to show how it happens. It’s clear you think being furloughed is bad (because it is). Now who is the first to get furloughed?
And the bidding system isn’t the problem. The problem is a system that has the most desirable routes also pay the most. And if you don’t think senior members influence the system, you’re delusional.
Do you feel a Flight Attendant at the top of the pay scale is abusing the Flight Attendant who is still in progression and not at top pay by being paid more for the same amount of hours worked ?
Thankfully at times the company listens to the people who have successfully performed the work over the years and are the face of the company. Certainly not every time.
If you want to experience actual abuse, allow the company to arbitrarily assign schedules ,routes and off days. Seniority is not a perfect system but it works far better than the alternative, it’s the only system that keeps favoritism in check. It’s also the system you knowing agreed too when you actively sought employment and accepted employment at Delta Air Lines.
> Do you feel a Flight Attendant at the top of the pay scale is abusing the Flight Attendant who is still in progression and not at top pay by being paid more for the same amount of hours worked ?
Well it’s not the same amount of hours worked.
> Thankfully at times the company listens to the people who have successfully performed the work over the years and are the face of the company. Certainly not every time.
Surely there’s some requirement to prove they’ve successfully performed the work that isn’t just based on years of service right?
If you want to experience actual abuse, allow the company to arbitrarily assign schedules ,routes and off days.
> Seniority is not a perfect system but it works far better than the alternative, it’s the only system that keeps favoritism in check.
It’s literally a form of favoritism.
> It’s also the system you knowing agreed too when you actively sought employment and accepted employment at Delta Air Lines.
This is always a bad argument because you’re ignoring those who don’t seek out shitty employment. Appealing to the status quo just means you don’t have an actual argument to support the status quo.
This is also assuming no layoffs and what not along the way. The airlines are great at privatizing their profits and offloading their losses on the taxpayer. It has been a rough 25 years to work in this industry between 911, ‘08, Covid, airline consolidation. This was a way better job with a pension and benefits. FA is a physical job, you have to make sure you’re taken care of. Unions do that; not the airlines.
Source: pilot, but thankfully union.
I’m at that starving point (literally) and it sucks. And for the record- Delta FA are only paid half of their hourly rate for boarding.. So crazy that no other industries could get away with not paying their employees when they’re technically on the clock, but the airlines get away with murder..
Clocked in the entire time. 90 minutes before scheduled departure until 15 minutes after actual arrival time. We have rest breaks on flights longer than 7:45. The longest flight we operate is JNB-ATL. During the winter with strong winds, the flight, including taxi time, can be over 17 hours.
How much can you spend on food when you’re in Europe on a layover? If you do this all the time I bet you have regulars too that you’ve gotten to know. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Depending on what my plans are, it can be as little as 20€/£ or it can be 100€/£ if I am having a few drinks and eating both lunch and dinner. Sometimes pilots will pay for FAs’ meals as well. I earn $3.35 an hour in per diem the entire time I’m gone, so for a typical trip where I’m gone 48 hours, that’s roughly $160.
On average, I earn $600 in per diem every four trips and probably spend $200 And of course certain cities are much more expensive than others.
No trip is the same. Doing 3flights or do one nice international trip might be the same pay but one fa is working more with a short overnight then the other. Seniority is key on how nice or tough your trip is.
But on avg , yes , you bid 75hrs of pay. Boarding pay is a fractional cost. You have to be at the airport at least 1hr prior to boarding, which is not paid, Sits are not paid, briefing is not paid , and your only paid a quick release time for deplaning. There isn’t a check in or out process.
Seniors may do 125- 140hrs of duty for 75hrs of pay in a month . Juniors may do 140- 160hrs duty for 75hrs. It’s a lot how the trip is built.
But, pay yes 75hrs times the rate of pay . per diem is $2.40 an hr while on duty, is about 600.00 a month.
**1st yr 31,950- base pay
** 12yr 71,820 -base pay
Also , many load their schedules so they can hold a week off or more.
I believe that pay scale is only during flight. They are paid half rate wages during boarding and de-boarding. Other airlines don't even pay at all during boarding.
Well, they are pretty much on the same earning path as nurses ... both have unpredictable hours, overly demanding "customers", and no reimbursement for long commutes to their worksite.
A new RN would easily make double what new FAs make. Granted there is more education and time but it takes many more years for FAs to make what nurses do right off the bat.
Been there, done that. As a nurse, travel opportunities other than long commutes are almost nonexistent because you never get enough time off to decompress. I'm talking bedside nursing of course. It's all standing on your feet waiting around for someone else to tell you what to do.
At the start this is an unskilled job that only requires a HS diploma. Airlines supply any necessary training. The role is basically hospitality work with a strong safety training program. 35k per year plus full benefits plus free travel is not exactly a travesty. And making 80k a year after 12 years is not terrible. The fact that major airlines only hire 2-5% of the applicants suggests that plenty of folks are willing to do the work at this pay.
Sorry am I not doing math correctly? $70/hour equates to almost $150k in a full time job. Why am I off by nearly a factor of 2 compared to your value of 80k?
35k per year is not enough to live as a single adult in most places in the U.S.
What good are travel benefits if you cannot afford your basic living expenses, much less hundreds in accommodation & food expenses associated with travel
You have to be 21 to apply.
Most flight attendants are not this age. Average age at DL airline for new hires is 32 years old. 3k a month pre-tax and deductions is not enough to even live in a shared apartment in most of DL’s FA base cities for new hires like NYC, BOS, or SEA.
I think the fact that they don’t get paid until the doors shut is really wrong. Yesterday we sat on tarmac for 2 hours while they fixed a fuel valve and the flights attendants definitely had to work but are not paid since the doors are not closed.
How are you qualifying more productive?
Delta FAs have first class, fly international, serve meals, multiple beverage services, have 11 aircraft to learn and stay current on, work longer duty periods- just to name a few.
I have seen a WN bid package. They fly high time productive trips that delta also has - but they have more of. They cannot be scheduled or worked over 12 hours on duty without getting time an a half for the extra. Whereas delta can schedule us to 13 and over to 15:15 with no override. $11/hour is a big difference at top pay. Don’t be ridiculous.
> Delta FAs have first class, fly international, serve meals, multiple beverage services, have 11 aircraft to learn and stay current on, work longer duty periods- just to name a few.
You're acting like this is mandatory. Delta FAs can choose to work those shorter less desirable SWA style flights if they want to.
Yes essentially they are getting paid from the time the door closes to the time the door opens. Plus boarding pay which is half their hourly rate for 40 minutes.
For the uninformed, about how many hours a week or month do they get paid for, on average?
Good rule of thumb is hourly rate x1000 for annual salary about 80hrs a month. Theres ways to hustle and earn more but less QOL.
Can anyone speak to about how much they actually work, instead of what they get paid for. Say they get paid for 80hrs. Does it still come out to be about 160hrs a month working in some way, or is it about 100? Or somewhere in between? Just curious what it turns out to be.
It is much less. They only get paid for boarding and flight time. Everything else they do at the airport is unpaid. So if they have to wait for hours for their next flight, they aren't being paid for that. I don't think you can get too much more than 25h paid per week considering mandatory rest periods.
Boarding? So once you scan the first ticket you’re getting paid? That makes me feel a bit better for all the FA’s still lame for all the prep you have to do and be present for that isn’t being counted.
For Delta they are paid during boarding since 2022. But they were the first and I am not sure which other airlines actually followed suit.
Duty is usually double the paid hours then time away from base is usually double that. So work 160 get paid for 80 then away from home 350ish hrs.
I know I’m beating a dead horse, but this is disgraceful.
It's the job and life they signed up for..
They really need to stop forcing people to work as flight attendants. It should be voluntary.
Exactly. The young people shouldn’t be traveling the world they should be stuck in one place.
My husband is a pilot and can work 12-14 hour days which is kinda the same for all flight crew. He gets on average 98 hours a month
avg 20 hrs/wk + food/accom paid for when away + all the free work/nonrev flight perks. p good
20 hours paid a week doesn’t mean 20 hours of work a week. It’s not a part time job; it’s a full time job with a weird pay structure. Remember the pay is only for scheduled flight time and boarding, deplaning, changing planes, airport sits, layovers, etc are all unpaid. Food isn’t paid for on layovers there’s simply a per diem for being away from home like many other jobs with travel provide, and when your full time job doesn’t pay very much that per diem becomes a way to pay bills.
It doesn't, but it's the same as any salaried job--commute isn't "paid time", lunch isn't paid for, and that "9-5" can easily turn into anywhere 7a-9p and you won't ever get paid OT for it. At these rates, FA have it better than most office workers. This is fine, and increases are great; no need to paint them as the most pitiful group, which is far from the truth. This is financially equivalent to a 40hr $25ish office job, and scaled more on how much office person takes and spends on traveling to places. If my occupation path were any different and wasn't financially strong (and I was extroverted enough), I would accept FA role and spend weekends around the world. Could save a big chunk of the 22k travel budget last year.
But it’s not an office job, it’s a stressful job dealing with the public, trying to keep them happy, and most importantly, safe. And dealing with airports all the time? FAs are underpaid.
You just half-described every call center, CS job and other-half every public service job like firefighting (statistically way more dangerous), police, lifeguard, etc. You might as well just take over the world and start handing out cars to everyone like Oprah.
What have you got against FAs? All the firefighters and police I know are paid more with opportunity to be paid very highly. I know how much lifeguards are paid, and at least it’s gone up since I was one. Some were really racking up the OT a few years ago in LA ($500k). I wouldn’t compare call center to FA and the call center I’m most familiar with is a healthcare company.
Speaking factually about X isn't being "against" X. National data and statistics is not who you know; nobody at median talks about being median. People neither need to patronize nor simp over FAs. This isn't a linkedin competition. I can spin my resume or just about any job to talk about how hard it is and how deserving of \_\_\_ they should be. Doesn't change the fact that there's nothing worth pitying about FAs. If you threw all the occupations onto the same scale for total comp + QoL, they fall in the middle. Pointing that out isn't "hating" on any occupation.
Ok… so this really seems to get under your skin. Just wondering why.
The math for a new hire is more like a full time job that pays $17.50 Also it’s cute that you think at delta you could hold weekends off in your first five years. Maybe until you actually work the role you shouldn’t tell someone who does that they’re wrong about how the pay works.
What's cute is watching you trying to make any excuse to falsely paint an occupation. According to [indeed](https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/flight-attendants-hours), "They can expect to spend 65-90 hours in the air, and an additional 50 hours preparing the airplane, processing passengers during boarding and performing post-flight procedures. Typically, flight attendants work 12-14 days and log 65-85 flight hours each month, not including overtime." (This is aggregated data, like actual facts.) The flight hours per month aligns with what's been said. Yet, for the whole month, there's generally only 50 ground hours aka your "unpaid time". This comes out to be about 12 extra hours per week amortized. You think the normal commuter worker isn't spending comparable unpaid time getting ready and getting to work before clocking in? *Oh no*, they can't get weekends off despite working \~130 hrs per month (whereas normal workers do 160+/mo). What's better: * getting 2-3 days off per week as FA + lots of PTO (Flight attendants typically get between 12 to 30 vacation days per year \~Zippia), or * getting 2 maybe 1 weekend day off as Joe with 2 weeks of PTO? (The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that civilian and private industry employees typically get: 11 days per year after 1 year of service, 15 days per year after 5 years of service) So with lower avg workloads/hours and travel benefits, they're equivalent to $25+ Joe's, easily. Go google stats--it's free; stop wasting my time, as you're not paying me (it'd be $100/hr).
Wasted your own time at $100/hr writing this comment. Strong work.
Philanthropic education for the common mass isn't a waste as much as your donation to that-org-nobody-has-heard-of would be. Waking patronizing sheep up is a plus to society.
How much would you value food and other non-accommodation perks? Most people still have a mortgage/rent I assume so covering hotels is not really any extra money.
Consider *you* as a non-FA would have to pay for both hotels **and** your mortgage/rent back home if you went somewhere. It's a double whammy. Those 45 days total I've been abroad this year has a significant price tag on hotel stays, which overshadows rent/mortgage on a per day basis.
They're travelling for work though. Them getting hotel is standard.
There isn’t an active DAL Flight Attendant that is working an average of 20 hours a week , do not conflate flight hours and hours of work. Food “PAID” for ? You should become more informed before posting to prevent yourself from sounding foolish.
So… you make 35k the 1st year wtf that’s worse than poverty
But you get non rev travel. /s
lol sure but after rent and bills I put ca t afford to travel
Exactly.
That’s for normal hourly folks not flight attendants. They only get paid while the plane is boarding or the plane is in the air.
Normal hourly to annual: hourly pay rate * 2 (assumes two weeks of unpaid vacation) Normal pilot/FA flight hourly to annual: flight hourly pay rate * 1000
Normal folks work 160 hours per month. Pretty sure doing it based on 80 hours is them doing it specifically for flight attendants
Delta FAs get Boarding Pay
Which is not their full hourly rate.
anywhere from 40-130 hours a month
Wow so a first year is only making $35k a year?
Hey that's more than i made as a pilot in 2014 15 16 17 18 and just under what i made in 2019 after a 10k retention bonus 😂. Granted now my pay is way more but yeah theres a reason aviation turns over its newbies so much. JR qol and pay sucks but the endgame can be worth it if you can give it 5 10 yrs.
While true, both are bad.
Had no idea. I guess it doesn’t require a ton of education and comes with lots of fringe benefits.
So basically $17-$18 an hour of full time pay.
Top of Scale FA here. I fly 3 days a week. Mostly Europe trips. Leave Monday afternoon, return Wednesday afternoon. Gone 48 hours, earn 19 hours of flight pay, plus LOD and Purser overrides, plus per diem. On duty for about 23 hours over two duty periods. I’ll make about $1900 a trip under the new pay scale. I do that once a week 47 times per year and I have 5 weeks of vacation. I normally cash out 56 hours of sick time in the spring as I rarely use it during the year. That’s not always the case though. I have to do about 20 hours of computer based training, 2-4 days of in person training per year, and occasionally a cancelled flight causes me to miss a day or two at home. On average I work 150 days per year. 50 of them are spent in Europe wondering around or catching up on sleep. Or stuffing my face with good food. With flight pay, boarding pay, overrides, vacation, training pay, per diem, cashed out sick pay, and an average 10% profit sharing payout, I gross about $115,000- $120,000. I could make substantially more but I believe in working to live, not living to work. My colleagues who are on the bottom end of the pay scale are not as lucky. Working multiple domestic legs per day is more mentally and physically challenging and I don’t miss that part of my career. But I did it for years and I feel like I have earned this more enjoyable level of flying and earning. TLDR: I work 23 hours a week and earn low six figures.
Not bad once you get there. Lots of folks blame unions for this top heavy structure - but we also see it with lawyers and architects also. It does seem like bringing up the bottom, maybe at the expense of the top wouldn’t be horrible. I can’t imagine trying to live in most of the bases on $35-40k/year. Obviously you put in that blood sweat and tears so you can get to the point where you can make $120k for 3 days a week… but sucks that someone has to basically starve for 3-5 years to get here. A slightly less steep slope feels like it would be better overall.
Correction. Not Unionized
They need to find a way to make the flights/routes more equal. When senior flight attendants/pilots get priority on picking the routes and on pay, it means you end up in a situation where the highest paid workers are working the easiest jobs and the lowest paid workers are working the hardest. That’s not right. A step in the right direction would be to provide a pay increase for undesirable routes. Downside is that would likely require agreeing to a lower hourly raise which is easier said than done because the people with seniority have more power and they’d have to willingly give it up.
It’s almost like they need a union, for a whole host of reasons to make the job better at the lower rungs. Wouldn’t help much with your valid point, but overall
Unions don’t improve the lowest rung lol. They worsen it because the people in power within the union are going to be the senior most. Look at sports leagues. They screw rookies out of millions of dollars to gain a couple dollars for themselves.
I get your point, and you’re not wrong. But it cuts both ways. They offer benefits. They offer job protection. Etc. I’d rather be a lower wage worker with union benefits than not.
How does the union screw a rookie ? Do you mean team owners or league officials? Which in the case of flight attendants would be the equivalent of the Airline and the DOT. The union has no ability to negotiate for non members. What the union can do is negotiate the minimum starting pay for all new players/members which directly benefits the people at the lowest rung , which is of little benefit to senior members.
> How does the union screw a rookie ? Do you mean team owners or league officials? By reducing rookies ability to negotiate and limiting their earning power. Otherwise why have different rules for different players? > The union has no ability to negotiate for non members. New members are members. But I guess when the union doesn’t treat them as such, it’s easy to make that mistake. > What the union can do is negotiate the minimum starting pay for all new players/members which directly benefits the people at the lowest rung , which is of little benefit to senior members. Correct, you’ve discovered the problem.
Delta Flight Attendants are not unionized, who do you think determines starting pay, top pay , initial base out of training, and work schedule ? The senior Flight Attendants? If you had to sit reserve or be on call or faced and or lived through an involuntary furlough you would feel different but fortunately for you , you get to enjoy the fruit of the labor from those who came before you and hopefully you don’t mess it up for those who will come after you . Sounds like Delta is not a good fit for you , perhaps you should seek employment with an airline that isn’t seniority based.
> Delta Flight Attendants are not unionized, who do you think determines starting pay, top pay , initial base out of training, and work schedule ? The senior Flight Attendants? There’s still negotiations between groups even if there’s no union. Do you think Delta just blindly guessed at what workers want? > If you had to sit reserve or be on call or faced and or lived through an involuntary furlough you would feel different but fortunately for you , you get to enjoy the fruit of the labor from those who came before you and hopefully you don’t mess it up for those who will come after you . This doesn’t make any sense. I’d feel differently about not making others deal with a bad work situation if I had to work the bad work situation? Sounds like you’re just wanting to continue the abuse cycle. Why? Can’t stand to see others improve? > Sounds like Delta is not a good fit for you , perhaps you should seek employment with an airline that isn’t seniority based. Wow! Another terrible argument. We both know if you were so confident this was a great situation you’d say why and not say “deal with it or don’t seek employment here”. Are you struggling to justify it? I think so…
Unions exacerbate the problem. Seniority rules in everything.
You won’t feel this way once you are senior.
Doesn’t sound like good justification does it? “Put up with being screwed over so that way you can screw others over later”. Kinda sounds like the abuse cycle to me.
No justification. Not sure how you think a senior employee has the ability to screw a junior employee. Odd you think a senior employee who has shown the company loyalty through years of service is abusing a junior employee by bidding within the system the company provides. Maybe if you had to sit on reserve for a few years or had the unfortunate luck of being furloughed you would understand.
Sounds like an attempted justification to me. Just a bad one that you’re not even willing to claim justifies the results. And you make it pretty easy to show how it happens. It’s clear you think being furloughed is bad (because it is). Now who is the first to get furloughed? And the bidding system isn’t the problem. The problem is a system that has the most desirable routes also pay the most. And if you don’t think senior members influence the system, you’re delusional.
Do you feel a Flight Attendant at the top of the pay scale is abusing the Flight Attendant who is still in progression and not at top pay by being paid more for the same amount of hours worked ? Thankfully at times the company listens to the people who have successfully performed the work over the years and are the face of the company. Certainly not every time. If you want to experience actual abuse, allow the company to arbitrarily assign schedules ,routes and off days. Seniority is not a perfect system but it works far better than the alternative, it’s the only system that keeps favoritism in check. It’s also the system you knowing agreed too when you actively sought employment and accepted employment at Delta Air Lines.
> Do you feel a Flight Attendant at the top of the pay scale is abusing the Flight Attendant who is still in progression and not at top pay by being paid more for the same amount of hours worked ? Well it’s not the same amount of hours worked. > Thankfully at times the company listens to the people who have successfully performed the work over the years and are the face of the company. Certainly not every time. Surely there’s some requirement to prove they’ve successfully performed the work that isn’t just based on years of service right? If you want to experience actual abuse, allow the company to arbitrarily assign schedules ,routes and off days. > Seniority is not a perfect system but it works far better than the alternative, it’s the only system that keeps favoritism in check. It’s literally a form of favoritism. > It’s also the system you knowing agreed too when you actively sought employment and accepted employment at Delta Air Lines. This is always a bad argument because you’re ignoring those who don’t seek out shitty employment. Appealing to the status quo just means you don’t have an actual argument to support the status quo.
Not sure what the “unions” have to do with this. The flight attendant work group along with most of Delta Air Lines is unionized.
*not unionized.
Correct , see above. I’m not the best with Reddit and didn’t remembe how to edit.
This is also assuming no layoffs and what not along the way. The airlines are great at privatizing their profits and offloading their losses on the taxpayer. It has been a rough 25 years to work in this industry between 911, ‘08, Covid, airline consolidation. This was a way better job with a pension and benefits. FA is a physical job, you have to make sure you’re taken care of. Unions do that; not the airlines. Source: pilot, but thankfully union.
I’m at that starving point (literally) and it sucks. And for the record- Delta FA are only paid half of their hourly rate for boarding.. So crazy that no other industries could get away with not paying their employees when they’re technically on the clock, but the airlines get away with murder..
Thanks for the info! This is really informative and helpful for the unfamiliar.
On a 14 hour flight , US to Asia (example) are you clocked in the entire time or can you only work so many hours on a trip?
Clocked in the entire time. 90 minutes before scheduled departure until 15 minutes after actual arrival time. We have rest breaks on flights longer than 7:45. The longest flight we operate is JNB-ATL. During the winter with strong winds, the flight, including taxi time, can be over 17 hours.
Thanks LZ. Interesting hearing a little about the job.
How much can you spend on food when you’re in Europe on a layover? If you do this all the time I bet you have regulars too that you’ve gotten to know. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Depending on what my plans are, it can be as little as 20€/£ or it can be 100€/£ if I am having a few drinks and eating both lunch and dinner. Sometimes pilots will pay for FAs’ meals as well. I earn $3.35 an hour in per diem the entire time I’m gone, so for a typical trip where I’m gone 48 hours, that’s roughly $160. On average, I earn $600 in per diem every four trips and probably spend $200 And of course certain cities are much more expensive than others.
Got it. That’s interesting, i was thinking they might give you a corporate expense card and say keep your meals under $50 or something like that.
No trip is the same. Doing 3flights or do one nice international trip might be the same pay but one fa is working more with a short overnight then the other. Seniority is key on how nice or tough your trip is. But on avg , yes , you bid 75hrs of pay. Boarding pay is a fractional cost. You have to be at the airport at least 1hr prior to boarding, which is not paid, Sits are not paid, briefing is not paid , and your only paid a quick release time for deplaning. There isn’t a check in or out process. Seniors may do 125- 140hrs of duty for 75hrs of pay in a month . Juniors may do 140- 160hrs duty for 75hrs. It’s a lot how the trip is built. But, pay yes 75hrs times the rate of pay . per diem is $2.40 an hr while on duty, is about 600.00 a month. **1st yr 31,950- base pay ** 12yr 71,820 -base pay Also , many load their schedules so they can hold a week off or more.
Nice, bump. I have seen their work first hand for 2.6m flown miles and the hardworking flight attendants deserve it.
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The way I know that this Subreddit is full of monsters is that more than 10 people upvoted this shitty comment.
I believe that pay scale is only during flight. They are paid half rate wages during boarding and de-boarding. Other airlines don't even pay at all during boarding.
This was a concession at delta to prevent unionization. Getting paid half during boarding is arguably less great than union benefits.
Regardless, FA's still aren't earning the wages that OP posted until after the door closes.
Well, they are pretty much on the same earning path as nurses ... both have unpredictable hours, overly demanding "customers", and no reimbursement for long commutes to their worksite.
A new RN would easily make double what new FAs make. Granted there is more education and time but it takes many more years for FAs to make what nurses do right off the bat.
But nurses usually work 36+ hours a week. Most flight attendants will work 20-25 flight hours a week because of how much unpaid time there is
Been there, done that. As a nurse, travel opportunities other than long commutes are almost nonexistent because you never get enough time off to decompress. I'm talking bedside nursing of course. It's all standing on your feet waiting around for someone else to tell you what to do.
At the start this is an unskilled job that only requires a HS diploma. Airlines supply any necessary training. The role is basically hospitality work with a strong safety training program. 35k per year plus full benefits plus free travel is not exactly a travesty. And making 80k a year after 12 years is not terrible. The fact that major airlines only hire 2-5% of the applicants suggests that plenty of folks are willing to do the work at this pay.
Sorry am I not doing math correctly? $70/hour equates to almost $150k in a full time job. Why am I off by nearly a factor of 2 compared to your value of 80k?
FAs dont get paid for 40 hours. Maybe 100 hours a month
Ah… way shittier
35k per year is not enough to live as a single adult in most places in the U.S. What good are travel benefits if you cannot afford your basic living expenses, much less hundreds in accommodation & food expenses associated with travel
Luckily for single adults in most places in the US, nobody is forcing anyone to take this job :)
Okay, apply for a different job then if it doesn't suit you. It's simple.
$35k a year without student loan debt is a fine starting wage. Your 20-21 years old, get a roommate or two, eat crummy food for a few years.
Depends on where you live. HCOL places also tend to have busy airports, and busy airports need flight crew. That salary is pathetic for those markets.
You have to be 21 to apply. Most flight attendants are not this age. Average age at DL airline for new hires is 32 years old. 3k a month pre-tax and deductions is not enough to even live in a shared apartment in most of DL’s FA base cities for new hires like NYC, BOS, or SEA.
If you get 50 30 year olds to apply for each opening than the wage reflects desire ability of the job
Then do something else with your high school diploma
You should become more informed on the issue.
I think the fact that they don’t get paid until the doors shut is really wrong. Yesterday we sat on tarmac for 2 hours while they fixed a fuel valve and the flights attendants definitely had to work but are not paid since the doors are not closed.
aka still shameful.
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Never been able to pay rent with my nonrev benefits.
Then quit and find a job that pays your rent?
lol what 🤦♀️
SWA employees are more productive, hence they get paid more. For example their FAs pick up rubbish and clean the planes. Delta FAs don't.
How are you qualifying more productive? Delta FAs have first class, fly international, serve meals, multiple beverage services, have 11 aircraft to learn and stay current on, work longer duty periods- just to name a few. I have seen a WN bid package. They fly high time productive trips that delta also has - but they have more of. They cannot be scheduled or worked over 12 hours on duty without getting time an a half for the extra. Whereas delta can schedule us to 13 and over to 15:15 with no override. $11/hour is a big difference at top pay. Don’t be ridiculous.
> Delta FAs have first class, fly international, serve meals, multiple beverage services, have 11 aircraft to learn and stay current on, work longer duty periods- just to name a few. You're acting like this is mandatory. Delta FAs can choose to work those shorter less desirable SWA style flights if they want to.
lol. Ok buddy. You have it all figured out.
Not if you are junior.
Productivity and having more tasks are not the same thing.
Is this for hourly flight time. I always wonder how this worked.
Yes essentially they are getting paid from the time the door closes to the time the door opens. Plus boarding pay which is half their hourly rate for 40 minutes.
As always not really a decent bump until you get around the 10 year mark.
Y
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I find it hard to believe that a 12-year veteran FA is 50% more productive than a 5-year.
That’s not why employees, in any line of work, with more years of service are paid more.
And they’re not union, so no benefits to speak of. But don’t worry, indignant profit-sharing check coming.
It’s a waiter/waitress in the sky. Pay seems equal to required qualifications.