Read our editorial “The Significance of Strikes” here.
About 80 Frontier Airlines flight attendants demonstrated in front of the Philadelphia International Airport on October 26, demanding a new contract that meets their demands and threatening to strike.
The demonstrators held signs reading, “More pay, no delay,” and chanted, “Ready to strike!” Many of the attendants came in between shifts. One demonstrator mentioned that more pickets are planned at other airports, including in Atlanta.
The 4,100 flight attendants working for Frontier across the country are organized under the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. They are currently working according to the previous contract, which expired May 2024.
Frontier wants the attendants to accept a pay raise far below inflation, according to the demonstrating attendants. Last quarter, Frontier’s revenue increased by a staggering 53% ($1.4 billion) compared to the same period last year, taking advantage of the sudden closure of Spirit Airlines to deepen monopoly control over the market.
The airline uses a variety of methods to deduct wages and increase profits. Flight attendants are only paid while the plane is moving. While they clock in long before takeoff, all labor done during that time, such as during boarding or off boarding, is completely unpaid, which the demonstrators demand to be changed. One attendant said that in a typical day she would work thirteen hours and get paid for just eight. Any flight delays make the attendants work even longer without receiving more pay.
Flight attendants also have no sick time. One attendant at the demonstration explained to The Worker, “If you call in sick, you get one point. If you get sick on duty you get 2.5 points. Reach a certain number of points, you get penalized and potentially terminated.” Some flight attendants work sick to avoid the penalties.
Frontier replaced the multi-day trip system with a turn system, where crews return to their base every night. This allows the monopoly to avoid paying for hotels and per-diem pay attendants received on trips.
In light of this, flight attendants now have to commute every day, adding to their hours of unpaid travel time, as well as paying tolls, high gas prices, and public transit cost. One attendant told The Worker, “All the money from working, you’re using it to come back to work.”
Frontier’s website promotes this policy as a benefit, stating, “Most of our trips have you back in base so you can sleep in your own bed!”
One flight attendant said that her day is a “17-hour day, 6 hours at home, then back to work the next day. I don’t have a personal life at all.”
Some attendants rent a “crash-pad” where they can sleep in between shifts. Those who can’t afford that sleep in their cars.
The most precarious are the reserves, new hires, and part-timers, who are on-call if other attendants can’t work or if there are delays. They can bid to be “ready-reserve,” waiting at the airport to fill in, or wait within two hours of the airport.
Reserves need to be prepared to work at any time. “I’ve been called at 2 a.m., 5 a.m., every hour of the day,” one reserve attendant told The Worker. “They tell you during training to never make plans.”
The airline doesn’t have to pay the reserves for waiting, and often chooses not to call them in at all. One flight attendant who commutes five hours by bus explains, “There are days you don’t get called. I haven’t flown in eight days.”
In 2024, 99.6% of the flight attendants voted to authorize a strike. The National Mediation Board has held negotiations between the airline and the union for over two years, with no new contract in sight.
“The only way they’re going to listen is to strike,” one reserve flight attendant explained. “If they don’t listen to us, we should go straight into it.”
Image: Frontier Airlines flight attendants demonstrate in front of the Philadelphia International Airport. Credit: The Worker.
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