Sun Country Airlines enters yet another year of contract negotiations with flight attendants

Flight attendants with Sun Country Airlines face another year of contract disputes with the Minneapolis-based leisure airline.

From an informational picket outside Terminal 2 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport during a February snowstorm last year to rejecting a tentative agreement in May to jointly pursuing federal mediation last July, recent efforts involved a lot of negotiations without much resolution. And 2024 almost seems to be history repeating itself.

The union representing the flight attendants — International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 120 — staged another informational picket Jan. 10 at MSP, continuing to demand higher wages, a shortened wage scale and compensation for unpaid boarding work as well as voluntary furloughs many took during the pandemic. The two sides met with the National Mediation Board this past December and have another meeting in February.

“In the last week, I’ve talked to three flight attendants and two had to borrow from their 401k to pay their bills,” said Cheryl Adamson, a 10-year Sun Country flight attendant and union negotiator. “Another had to change their filing to increase pay to make ends meet.”

Sun Country spokeswoman Wendy Burt said in a statement before the informational picket earlier this month the company is confident it can reach an agreement, and the negotiations have no impact on daily flight operations.

“We appreciate everything our flight attendants do for our passengers and our company every day,” she said.

Sun Country flight attendants, more than 600 of them, have been working under a 2014 contract, amended in 2016, after negotiations paused during the pandemic and resumed in October 2021. Of the ultimately rejected tentative agreement reached in March, Sun Country had said it “significantly improve[d] members’ wages and working conditions,” though neither side offered specific details. Of those flight attendants voting, 96% voted down the deal.

“I think in whole the contract just wasn’t good enough for everybody, mainly the pay,” said Tanya DeVito, a 32-year Sun Country flight attendant and union negotiator, adding the contract wouldn’t have kept up with competitors like Allegiant Air and Frontier Airlines.

Entry-level Sun Country flight attendants start at $21.53 an hour and can reach $53.56, according to union officials. That scale stretches across 34 years, however, and the union would like to see it closer to the industry standard of 12 to 20 years. The median salary for a flight attendant was $63,760 last year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said. Those in the bottom 10th percentile made $37,690.

Flight attendants typically work around 85 paid hours a month, which doesn’t include the time it takes to board passengers nor does it account for any delays. MSP’s dominant carrier, Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, starting paying its non-unionized flight attendants 50% pay for boarding last year in an unusual move for the industry.

“Our new flight attendants who are just starting, they have a reserve schedule. They are on call 20 days a month from midnight to midnight,” Adamson said of her fellow Sun Country colleagues. “These are flight attendants making $19,000 a year.”

The airline’s pilots approved a new contract in December 2021 that gives them a significant pay increase. The airline’s fleet employees and mechanics also voted to unionize in recent years. The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association also has requested the National Mediation Board appoint a federal mediator to oversee its bargaining process with Sun Country, which should start in March.