Despite the glamour associations that the aviation industry worked to estcreate in its early history, most flight attendants in 2024 work long and unpredictable hours for a salary that, at least at the start of one’s career, is just slightly above minimum wage.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the average flight attendant in the U.S. earned $68,370 in 2023 while the bottom 10% earned just $39,580. As the salary calculated by working full-time at $28 per hour, the average number is also highly variable — many flight attendants often report not being able to secure enough flying hours on the job to reach it.
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“First few years pay at UA [United Airlines] is [sic] so abysmal that I ended up filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and it’s been the best thing to ever happen to me,” the flight attendant wrote under the u/Wonderful_Ad_8811 username on the Reddit forum for the profession.
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This is how a flight attendant ended up filing for bankruptcy
The flight attendant, who did not identify themself by gender, said that they had been supplementing their income as a substitute teacher and Instacart delivery worker but that was ultimately not enough to keep up with cost of living while also making strides in their debt load (the exact amount was not specified).
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“I maxed out all my credit cards and took out a loan on my old 401k trying to survive on probation and for the last year I’ve been working my ass off trying to beat the interest on the credit cards but to no avail,” the post reads.
The state’s requirements for filing for bankruptcy requires an income no larger than $75,000 and, as they qualified, the flight attendant was able to wipe out her credit card debt at the cost of her credit history and ability to apply for loans including a mortgage in the nearby future.
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Sparkling water enters the story
“I sleep so much better at night,” the post reads further. “Now I can go to the job and worry about shit that doesn’t matter like ‘sparkling water’ and where coworkers that I’m never gonna see again commute from.”
While many commenters pointed out the problem with using bankruptcy as a “cure-all” after accruing debt, flight attendant salaries are a persistent point of contention and cause of strife across the industry.
Both United and American Airlines (AAL) flight attendant unions’ unfruitful attempts at negotiation with the airlines have culminated in job action last summer — the latter was able to secure a five-year contract that includes an 18% pay raise for a first-year flight attendant and one of up to 20% for those with more than a decade of flying experience.
In United’s case, a contract has not yet been reached and 99.9% of union members voted to authorize a strike back in August — one of the first in what will likely be a series of protests in different cities (and, if the situation escalates, potentially a full job walkout that would disrupt service) took place on Oct. 17 in front of United’s Chicago headquarters.
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