United Continental Holdings Inc won approval for a new contract with flight attendants and reached an “agreement in principle” with mechanics, setting the stage for labor peace for the first time since the 2010 merger that created the airline.
The Association of Flight Attendants voted 53 percent in favor of a five-year pact that raises top pay rates as much as 31 percent, according to a joint statement with the carrier on Friday.
United also reached a proposed deal with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters covering 9,000 technicians and related employees, which is to be voted on once the language is finished.
The results bolster chief executive officer Oscar Munoz’s strategy of winning over a disgruntled workforce, even if it means accepting higher costs. United reached new agreements or extensions of existing ones with pilots, ground workers and dispatchers during the past year.
“Upon ratification, this will be the first time in almost a decade that all United work groups will have labor contracts in place,” Munoz said in a joint statement with the Teamsters.
“When I took this job last year, I promised to turn the page and write a new chapter in our approach to labor and management relations at United,” he said in the statement with flight attendants.
Maximum pay for flight attendants with at least 13 years of experience is to be set at US$62 an hour, according to the contract ratified by the 25,000-member union.
United had failed to reach a joint flight-attendant contract since its October 2010 merger with Continental Airlines. The new deal would allow the carrier to put attendants from United and Continental on the same planes for the first time.
A combined group of flight attendants should give United more flexibility in scheduling, especially when a cabin crew runs up against federally mandated allowable work hours and must be replaced. Until now, for example, a Continental crew could only be replaced by another from the same predecessor airline.
While many analysts see the labor pacts generally as positive, the deals will boost costs significantly.
Leaders of the flight attendants union overcame significant opposition over the past six weeks to get members to support the deal.
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