United Airlines Lawsuit Claims ‘Flying Hours’ Pay Policy Deprives Flight Attendants of Proper Wages

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Two flight attendants allege in a proposed class action lawsuit that United Airlines has violated Colorado labor laws by failing to pay them and other workers proper minimum and overtime wages.

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Specifically, the 11-page wage and hour lawsuit relays that the airline compensates flight attendants only for “flying hours”—that is, the time between the pilots’ release of the brake at the beginning of a flight and the plane coming to a stop at the destination. The suit alleges that United has unlawfully denied employees compensation for other non-flying work hours spent on duty, at the airport or gate, or on the plane.

As a result of this uniform policy, the airline has knowingly violated the rights of hundreds of Colorado flight attendants protected under the state’s labor laws, the case contends.

One plaintiff, a former flight attendant who regularly worked at the Denver International Airport, claims United did not compensate her for non-flying work hours aside from a “per diem” of approximately $2 per hour.

Thanks to the airline’s policy, the complaint charges, employees such as the plaintiff were not paid for time spent performing pre-flight tasks prior to closing the gate’s boarding door, fulfilling duties on the plane between the start of boarding and the conclusion of deplaning, assisting passengers at the gate or traveling between planes at the airport.

The filing notes that during these unpaid, non-flying work hours, the plaintiff and other flight attendants were required to be on duty, in uniform and at the airport or gate or on the plane assigned to them.

As a result of United’s “flying hours” policy, the airline has failed to compensate the plaintiff for hundreds of hours worked in Colorado, the lawsuit alleges.

“To the best of [the plaintiff’s] knowledge and recollection, she estimates that she worked an average of 14 unpaid hours per week in Colorado during the period from February 2015 to May 2022, and that she worked an average of 28 unpaid hours per week in Colorado from May 2022 to March 2023,” the suit shares.

The case goes on to claim that on many occasions, non-flying hours resulted in flight attendants working overtime. However, United has unlawfully failed to provide employees with proper overtime pay at one-and-one-half times their regular hourly rate for each hour worked over 40 hours per week, 12 hours per day or 12 hours per shift, the complaint contends.

The United Airlines wage and hour lawsuit looks to represent anyone who worked for the airline as a flight attendant in Colorado at any time since May 13, 2018.

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