Of the “big three” airlines in the United States, Delta has by far the fewest unionized employees, as pilots are the only major unionized workgroup. For decades, there have been campaigns to unionize Delta’s flight attendants. While nothing has come of this yet, efforts are once again ramping up. To go along with that, management’s messaging to dissuade this campaign is also increasing, and it’s rubbing some employees the wrong way, as flagged by PYOK.
In this post:
The campaign to unionize Delta’s flight attendants
With Delta’s 28,000 flight attendants not being unionized, there have of course been considerable efforts among the major airline unions to get them onboard. For that matter, many Delta flight attendants also support this (while many others don’t).
Delta management is generally smart with how it approaches labor relations, as Delta flight attendants have industry leading pay, as management clearly tries to stay one step ahead. It seems that the goal of unionizing wouldn’t even directly be about higher pay, but rather about more protections and better work conditions.
In the past 25 years, there have been several efforts to unionize Delta flight attendants. For example, there were major campaigns to unionize flight attendants in 2002, 2008, and 2018. While all those ended up being unsuccessful, the votes were close, at times. For example, during one of the attempts, 9,544 people voted against unionizing, while 9,216 people voted in favor of unionizing.
Since 2019, the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) has been working on its latest drive to unionize Delta flight attendants. As you’d expect, the pandemic delayed all of that. However, the campaign has been picking up steam within the past year or so. In November 2024, the union claimed to be within weeks of having enough support to file for a vote. However, nothing has come of that, until now.
Delta warns flight attendants of risks of unionization
As you’d expect, Delta management runs pretty strong campaigns against unionization. As the latest example of that, Delta sends a weekly email to flight attendants, and the most recent one has some interesting comments about unionization.
This is specifically about A-Cards. At least 50% of flight attendants need to sign these cards in order to trigger an official ballot for unionization. A flight attendant shares the note on Reddit:
RUMOR: Signing an A-Card is just like registering to vote.
FACT: Signing an A-Card means you want a union election — it is nothing like registering to vote. Whether or not you sign an A-Card does not impact your eligibility to vote if there were an election. It is important to understand what you could be signing up for by signing an A-Card — uncertainty, years of negotiations and a lot of inner turmoil.
The flight attendant comments the following:
I’m almost at a loss for words at the email we received today. There’s pretty much always one portion of our weekly email that is dedicated to union busting-that is nothing new. I have to say, I never thought I’d see Delta stoop this low and suggest that voting for a union could lead to INNER TURMOIL. When is enough, enough?! What will it take for everyone to wake up and see that this company does NOT CARE ABOUT US. They will do anything to keep a union away. Even if it means denigrating their employees, or vaguely threatening us (don’t risk it, don’t sign it). Enough. Is. Enough.
I’m curious to see if this unionization effort succeeds
I think it’s worth mentioning that Delta management and employees have a significantly better relationship than what you’ll find at American and United, and that’s largely reflected in the service.
Delta employees and management are on the same page about the mission of the company, and Delta offers flight attendants proactive pay raises, improved compensation like boarding pay, and the highest profit sharing in the industry.
With that in mind, I’m very curious to see how unionization efforts do this time around. One thing is for sure — the Delta workforce has changed materially since the last time a union vote happened, given how many new airline employees there are since the start of the pandemic.
Obviously belonging to a union requires paying dues. I have a hard time imagining that Delta flight attendants will get higher pay as a result of unionizing. I mean, United flight attendants are unionized, and still don’t have a new contract, even after years of negotiating.
But I know that for some flight attendants, unionization isn’t just about better pay, but also about negotiating better rules and protections, as there are some details in the current contract that many Delta flight attendants don’t like, and they have no way real way of negotiating that.
Bottom line
Efforts to unionize Delta flight attendants are once again ramping up. Clearly that’s also how the company views it, given the warnings that Delta flight attendants are getting about the risks of unionization, including “uncertainty, years of negotiations and a lot of inner turmoil.”
It’s anyone’s guess how these efforts play out this time around, given how the workforce has changed so much since the start of the pandemic. In the past, unionization votes have been close, so I don’t really know what to expect.
How do you see the current Delta flight attendant unionization effort playing out?
A union’s only purpose is to enrich their pockets and protect lazy employees. As a retired Delta flight attendant I’ve seen the Unions, specifically AFA, blow MILLIONS on failed attempts. What does this tell you !
Delta FA’s have NO sick leave time. You have to take personal time or vacation if you become ill. The Social Security Offset was the biggest wholesale theft of FA money I have ever seen. And the moaning about “the loss of the special relationship between FA’s and management” is laughable. That relationship is definitely one sided. When short of crews, pilots get “green sheeted” which is code for triple pay while cabin crews get...
Delta FA’s have NO sick leave time. You have to take personal time or vacation if you become ill. The Social Security Offset was the biggest wholesale theft of FA money I have ever seen. And the moaning about “the loss of the special relationship between FA’s and management” is laughable. That relationship is definitely one sided. When short of crews, pilots get “green sheeted” which is code for triple pay while cabin crews get nothing. Give us a seat at the table. What are you so afraid of? It’s all about control.
First, it's annoying when someone NOT in the industry writes an article as if they know the industry and don't bother to get facts correct. There was not a vote in 2018.
Also, near the end you mention some FAs don't like what's in the current contract. There is no current contract. There are policies and procedures that delta ordains and that's it. There's an EIG to give "input" but it's largely for show as they don't have actual negotiating power.
I'm a Delta Flight Attendant and have always been treated very well and with the utmost respect. With the highest overall compensation in the industry, I don't understand why anyone would be interested in a union representing us. When things happen that are out of our control, like the crowd strike debacle, or inclement weather, ALL airline employees are inconvenienced equally. Union represented employees fare no better, and make less money doing it. And by...
I'm a Delta Flight Attendant and have always been treated very well and with the utmost respect. With the highest overall compensation in the industry, I don't understand why anyone would be interested in a union representing us. When things happen that are out of our control, like the crowd strike debacle, or inclement weather, ALL airline employees are inconvenienced equally. Union represented employees fare no better, and make less money doing it. And by the way, just the very nature of a union pits employees against employer. It can be a very tumultuous . If we were constantly treated badly, and made a lot less money, maybe a union would have it's benefits. What incentive would Delta have to keep us at top pay if we unionized? Just to get back to parity with pay alone could take years. So I'll be among the first to encourage others... don't risk it. Don't sign it.
Unions are useless organizations that ONLY care about $$ ...HOW MUCH money will 28000 flight attendants da ts pay every pay check....that is what they care about...then they ask you to strike while the asholes in charge get full pay and flight attendants on strike get ALMOST Nothing. Delta has nothing but great to flight attendants wants so whoever this person is, she has no clue about anything!
At some point, Bastian will find himself across the table from Sara Nelson, and he'll have no one to blame but himself.
Delta isn’t wrong by saying it would create inner turmoil. That’s exactly what it does. Why would DL FAs want to become unionized when Delta gives them everything they would get from long, hard negotiations right there on a silver platter. I’m a unionized flight attendant by the way. We need a u in at my airline because they don’t treat us this way. If they did, we wouldn’t need a union.
Past good behavior is not a guarantee of future good behavior. If Delta continues to play ball and treat it's FAs well, then there shouldn't be any turmoil. The FAs have the right to unionize for collective representation when they feel management isn't treating them fairly.
AJ90X I agree with your statements. If DL FA's unionize --we the customers will pay the price..... They are doing well without paying Union dues..I hope they are smart enough to realize that fact!!!!
Unions have historically benefited workers—there’s no denying that. In some industries, they still have a place. But in the airline world, unions today seem to create more division than progress, fueling an "us vs. them" mentality rather than real collaboration. A perfect example is the inflammatory messaging recently sent out by American Airlines' flight attendants: more hysteria than meaningful advocacy.
If unions operated as true partners—fighting for employees without manufacturing outrage—I might feel differently. But...
Unions have historically benefited workers—there’s no denying that. In some industries, they still have a place. But in the airline world, unions today seem to create more division than progress, fueling an "us vs. them" mentality rather than real collaboration. A perfect example is the inflammatory messaging recently sent out by American Airlines' flight attendants: more hysteria than meaningful advocacy.
If unions operated as true partners—fighting for employees without manufacturing outrage—I might feel differently. But too often, they’re driven by self-interest, corruption, and fear tactics. Their aggressive recruiting isn’t just about helping workers—there’s something in it for them, and it shows.
Delta, in my experience, takes a very different approach. I’ve personally seen Delta leaders show real humanity—working with employees who made mistakes but had strong track records, giving second chances where many companies would have fired without hesitation. This flexibility, this willingness to weigh the full picture, is something you almost never see in heavily unionized environments. Unions typically strip away that human judgment, forcing rigid processes that slow down resolutions, alienate leadership, and ultimately hurt the very people they claim to protect.
No company is perfect, and Delta has its flaws. But overall, it provides strong compensation, advancement opportunities, a culture of recognition, and a clear link between the company’s success and the employees’ success. That balance gets destroyed when unions turn every issue into a battleground.
Executive pay might be excessive, but that’s a larger structural issue—no union is going to change it. Meanwhile, many modern unions seem out of touch with reality, making wild demands and sowing anger for their own survival.
Delta employees already enjoy better opportunities than most of their peers at other airlines. Instead of joining the fight-to-the-death battles unions are waging elsewhere, Delta workers can continue to benefit from a company motivated to stay generous, competitive, and human—all without destroying what makes the culture strong in the first place.
It’s a necessary evil in the airline industry. Especially for schedule protection and improvements to scheduling, work rules, etc. It’s not all about money, and they will retain their raises, profit sharing, and everything else currently offered. Their QOL can just go up.
I do not know what concerns the FAs at Delta have and what avenues are available to have them addressed with corporate.
What I can say is that my personal experiences with unions is mixed. I have seen individuals unfairly targeted by a manager. I have experienced unions defending employees, because they are required to, who did not do their jobs and ended up causing those who did, more work.
If the issue...
I do not know what concerns the FAs at Delta have and what avenues are available to have them addressed with corporate.
What I can say is that my personal experiences with unions is mixed. I have seen individuals unfairly targeted by a manager. I have experienced unions defending employees, because they are required to, who did not do their jobs and ended up causing those who did, more work.
If the issue is not pay, but other concerns, the corporate office would be wise to identify these concerns and create a system for addressing them.
Unionize or Not whatever you do. DO NOT go with AFA they are completely useless! Pay your dues and shut up. 5 years without a contract or raise at UA.
We went 5 years too. That’s the way it goes when you’re union. DL is better off without.
Unionized employees inevitably come to view the union as their employer and boss, and the company as their enemy. For service sector jobs like a FA, this is the kiss of death for all involved.
FA are safety jobs. But I suppose technically all jobs are service jobs, even the president provides a service.
Unions should exist because they need to.
If Delta FAs are better off not in the union, then I don't see why they need to unionize.
But it’s not about facts. It’s about messaging and campaign and brainwashing and serving the interests of the union itself.
They should go work at a union based carrier where employee morale is great like American.
Is this a joke?
Delta better get with it! American, Alaska, and Southwest now make more than Delta flight attendants. Delta lumps their raises in with other workgroups, so if Delta delays raises they are delaying them for more than just the flight attendants which is a shame. Meanwhile ED is probably giving himself another huge raise.
I couldn't help but read ED as the medical term and wonder how that comports with a huge raise.
It’s giving micro pen
I thought they'd be too busy yesterday celebrating the birthday of their role model, the Gestapo, to be unionizing. Go for it. Anything that hurts Delta is fine by me.
What is with you and your animus against Delta, New York City, and Boston?
Delta sucks in Chicago, but Chicago sucks as a city. I hear you also went to UChicago, i.e., where people go when they can't get into Harvard or even Columbia.
Lol in many programs UChicago now outranks both Columbia and Harvard.
The question to also ask is what is with you and your animis against Chicago?
Simple. Chicago is an unremarkable city with no ambition. Nobody moves there to achieve something meaningful. That's also why Chicago has bucked the trend of skyrocketing housing costs. Demand (from people willing and able to pay those costs) is not there.
Ambitious young Americans move to Boston for college (Harvard) and New York for work (finance, consulting, law). Full stop--almost....
Simple. Chicago is an unremarkable city with no ambition. Nobody moves there to achieve something meaningful. That's also why Chicago has bucked the trend of skyrocketing housing costs. Demand (from people willing and able to pay those costs) is not there.
Ambitious young Americans move to Boston for college (Harvard) and New York for work (finance, consulting, law). Full stop--almost. San Francisco is a reasonable alternative for Americans interested in tech who have family on the west coast, which offers compelling perks that are elusive out east. LA/OC could be appropriate for artistic talents and niche specializations--think NASA JPL, or broadly, engineering of the non-software variety.
What's backing up my claims? Look at where AA operates premium domestic flights. They are exclusively between BOS and JFK on the east coast and SFO, LAX, and SNA on the west coast. ORD is not on the list.
I hate Delta because they've screwed me over more than a few times in regard to customer service, and I've never had a good flight with them. The FAs are prison guards with different uniforms. I also hate them because of their fanboys, first and foremost the person whose name we don't mention here anymore.
As for my alma mater, we have 100 Nobels, two winners I had as teachers as an undergrad. That's more...
I hate Delta because they've screwed me over more than a few times in regard to customer service, and I've never had a good flight with them. The FAs are prison guards with different uniforms. I also hate them because of their fanboys, first and foremost the person whose name we don't mention here anymore.
As for my alma mater, we have 100 Nobels, two winners I had as teachers as an undergrad. That's more than Hahvahd and Columbia. We also invented modern macroeconomics and did the first nuclear chain reaction. The Ivy League can go stuff it.
Chicago is my birthplace and my residence. It doesn't have the stuck-up heads-up-asses Noo Yawk Yankers and Massholes populating it like the ones I had to room with when I was in the Army. And we have far superior pizza to anywhere in the world.
Delta FA are not unionized, received a new contract, as well as a general raise a year ago and rumors are another raise is coming soon. United FA are unionized and have been waiting years for a new contract. Looks like Delta treats their FA better than counterparts that have a union. Grass isn't always greener.
Delta also has a thing called Social Security Offset that allows them to deduct what they get in Social Security from their Pension. Basically "stealing" their Social Security
So Delta gets a pension? Better than the other unionized airlines that list theirs or had them frozen.
The email isn’t wrong about inner turmoil. It willl cause a division in the work group and the politics turn toxic.
The grass isn’t greener on the otherwise. You trade one bureaucracy and trade it for another…..you just have to read animal farm to understand that.
Inefficiencies pop up and things grind to a halt. Having heard the toxic internal fighting of airline labor relations…..I don’t think the grass is necessarily greener. You...
The email isn’t wrong about inner turmoil. It willl cause a division in the work group and the politics turn toxic.
The grass isn’t greener on the otherwise. You trade one bureaucracy and trade it for another…..you just have to read animal farm to understand that.
Inefficiencies pop up and things grind to a halt. Having heard the toxic internal fighting of airline labor relations…..I don’t think the grass is necessarily greener. You get industry leading pay. Before everyone and the best bonuses. What else could you really want …..
Delta seems like a prime target for a firm like Elliott Investment Management. Paying attendants more than the industry and intangibles to keep customers happy is not returning the maximum to short term investors.
Short term investors can kiss my ass.
Delta has been wise enough (thus far) to see beyond con artists like Elliott Investment Management. Also, short term investors can kiss my happy ass as well.
Yeah, talk to me in 5 years when Southwest is in bankruptcy and the short term investors have bled it dry.
Elliott may take over Delta when they merge it with Southwest. I’m not saying it’s going to happen but I could see a scenario where it could. If it did happen Delta’s flight attendants might want to be in a union.
Delta hired too many terrible employees coming out of the pandemic without properly vetting, interviewing, or training them - including many flight attendants. Most of these new employees are young and lazy and terrible at customer service, so it makes sense they'd want a union to protect them for not doing their jobs and/or doing their jobs extremely poorly. Yet another great American institution being ruined by radical leftist Gen Z brainwashed by the extremists...
Delta hired too many terrible employees coming out of the pandemic without properly vetting, interviewing, or training them - including many flight attendants. Most of these new employees are young and lazy and terrible at customer service, so it makes sense they'd want a union to protect them for not doing their jobs and/or doing their jobs extremely poorly. Yet another great American institution being ruined by radical leftist Gen Z brainwashed by the extremists that invaded and seized the school system.
“Lazy Radical leftist Gen Z brainwashed by extremists”. Are you ok?
I'm dandy, since I'm old enough to remember a time before the braindead commies, tankies, and sharia apologists who hate capitalism, freedom, civil liberties, and a hard day's work took over the cultural discourse. Gen Z and their radical leftist politics will be the downfall of this nation as they continue to destroy the institutions of American society one by one, and if you're too dumb to see that I can't help you.
Weird. The rest of the world see USA’s downfall happening right now because of the Billionaire Boomers.
dont you have a rock to scamper back under ?
Say it ain't so, another aged mind that thinks because the system worked for him, the system works for everyone.
@James
Sounds like he bathes in the oligarchs Koolaid at least twice a day.
98% of the country hates the 2% of the country that are leftists, all my center-lib friends and I hate leftists more than most right wingers hate leftists.
So take your completely false assumption about my views on Trump and shove it back up where it came from.
Lol someone forgot to take his medication today…assuming there is medication for being a nasty deluded right wing troll who makes up statistics.
@aj90x
Big difference between supporting unionization and being one of those "Palestine can do no wrong" far left weirdos. And as a guy who went from center right to solidly liberal, you don't hate the current generation of right-wingers enough. They're robbing you blind and destroying every legal protection you have under the constitution, and you're here spouting conspiracies about leftist indoctrination in schools. The fiscally responsible conservative died when Trump got his first...
@aj90x
Big difference between supporting unionization and being one of those "Palestine can do no wrong" far left weirdos. And as a guy who went from center right to solidly liberal, you don't hate the current generation of right-wingers enough. They're robbing you blind and destroying every legal protection you have under the constitution, and you're here spouting conspiracies about leftist indoctrination in schools. The fiscally responsible conservative died when Trump got his first term.
You’re so cliché
Sorry, the above comment was meant as a reply to another comment but it got placed as a response to yours.
Ummm that’s far from the truth. FAs HAVE to be trained, emergency procedures and then service. Your statement is 100% incorrect. They want scheduling protections (I.e. extensions, duty limits better than FAA/117 rules, maybe better hotel accommodations, rest protections.”
It’ll be okay little buddy. You is kind, you is smart, you is important.
I don’t quite know how to feel about labor unions. Republicans oppose them and Republicans are stupid. But are they right in this case? We all know unions have protected people who don’t belong in the workforce. And successful people in all kinds of industries work their entire careers without unions.
I’m all for stronger labor laws in this country and they shouldn’t apply only to union workers.
Unions have done much more than that. Many protections and amenities workers have today like overtime pay, sick days, safer working conditions, etc, are due to unions.
I fly Delta once or twice every week to ten days. I'd say about 30% of flight attendants wear AFA pins, which I'm surprised Delta allows. They're all young, not old flight attendants from legacy Northwest (which was unionized). I find that kind of interesting. The FAs who do wear the pins fit into two categories: predominantly black or youngish white women.
And these are the ones likely to have discipline problems....so yeah, the math adds up.
Is it hard to type while peering thru those tiny holes in your white hood?
@FNT Delta Diamond - Interesting observation. I was legacy Northwest for 21 years on ground, inflight and management. I left in 2021. Clearly NWA was highly unionized. I was wondering if the employees pushing might be the legacy NWA flight attendants. Thanks for sharing your observations.
In my experience, it is people hired post merger that are the most active supporters.
Are you sure Delta hires any young white women? All I ever have on Delta is black FAs.