Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants have reached a tentative agreement on a contract extension, which is expected to improve negotiations for a joint collective bargaining agreement, a key step in the post-merger integration of flight attendants from Hawaiian and Alaska.
Alaska Air Group Inc., the parent company of Alaska Airlines, completed its $1.9 billion acquisition of Hawaiian Holdings, the parent company of Hawaiian Airlines, on Sept. 18.
Alaska and Hawaiian flight attendants cannot combine forces until the JCBA is ratified and the seniority list is merged and accepted. JCBA negotiations start this month, and in the meantime flight attendants at Hawaiian and Alaska have separate collective bargaining agreements.
Hawaiian’s flight attendants, represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, reached a tentative deal Friday with voting slated to close April 17. The agreement runs through February 2028 and includes a 6% pay raise effective April 1 with additional 3% raises on April 1, 2026, and April 1, 2027.
The deal also comes with inclusion in Alaska Air Group’s profit-sharing program, and with scheduling improvements.
Joni Kashiwai, AFA Hawaiian negotiations chair, said in a statement, “Hawaiian Flight Attendants deserve certainty and guaranteed improvements as we work towards our joint contract. This extension provides these certain economic improvements while joint contract negotiations begin this month.”
Alaska flight attendants on Feb. 28 ratified a three-year contract that provides an immediate, double-digit wage increase as well as boarding pay and retroactive pay.
Jeffrey Peterson, AFA president at Alaska Airlines, said in a statement, “This contract will immediately and significantly improve the lives of Alaska Flight Attendants. Alaska Flight Attendants’ solidarity pushed management to recognize our critical role to the safety and success of this airline. This contract also raises the foundation for the new joint Alaska-Hawaiian negotiations following the merger.”
The AFA-CWA has said that a joint negotiating committee comprising members from both airlines will negotiate the JCBA with a goal of “attempting to combine the best from each flight attendant contract in addition to other improvements.”
While the merger introduced some uncertainty for flight attendants, AFL strongly supported it during the federal vetting process.
International President of AFA-CWA Sara Nelson said in an Aug. 9 letter to the U.S. secretary of transportation and the assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division that “the agreement we reached for protecting both our jobs and our communities is the strongest in our union’s history.”
“We have been able to lock in an agreement specific to the merger including no furlough protections, no bumping of Flight Attendants from where they currently live and work, and contractual improvements in the near term as well as a definitive negotiations process to ensure Flight Attendants share the benefits of the merger,” Nelson said.
The merger perhaps provided a catalyst for all sides to reach swift agreements on their most recent labor agreements. In contrast, union negotiations have dragged on for United Airlines flight attendants, who have been working with an amenable contract since 2021.
United’s unionized flight attendants are slated to demonstrate Wednesday at airports nationwide. They plan to hold a rally from 10 to 11 a.m. outside of Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
The action comes after United flight attendants filed for federal mediation over a year ago, and last fall overwhelmingly approved a vote to strike if necessary. However, that does not mean a strike is imminent, as federal law bars a strike until after a lengthy process that includes a release from mediation, which can be granted only by the National Mediation Board.
