Sun Country Airlines flight attendants picket amid contract negotiations

LaNeia Huberty loves being a flight attendant at Sun Country Airlines, where she's worked for 25 years.

But after her most recent 50-cent hourly pay increase and a three-month leave of absence to help the company save money during the pandemic, she joined about 150 of her peers during her time off Wednesday to picket for higher wages.

"Sun Country is the hometown airline. We're family. They're always telling us what a great job we do and how happy they are to have us," said Huberty, who's also a union negotiator. "Well, show us with the money."

The pickets — including some Sun Country pilots — gathered outside Terminal 2 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in the midst of a historic snowstorm, including chilly 20-degree temperatures. All in an effort to appeal for public support for a better contract.

While many flight attendants took leaves to save the company $4 million when travel plummeted during COVID-19, Huberty said others were left to police passengers to wear masks when they were mandated.

Rich Fredrick — a business agent for Teamsters Local 120 that represents around 500 Sun Country flight attendants — said the airline should recognize that sacrifice during the pandemic.

Sun Country is a fast-growing, Minneapolis-based leisure airline that competes with Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, the dominant carrier at MSP.

"Our meetings with the [International Brotherhood of Teamsters] have been productive and with strong engagement around our shared goal of reaching agreement on a proposed contract that reflects the importance of our flight attendants to Sun Country," an airline spokeswoman said in an email.

Bargaining paused for 19 months because of the pandemic and resumed in October 2021, the union said, noting Sun Country's record revenue of $894.4 million last year and its expanding fleet.

The flight attendants have been operating on a 2014 contract with a wage deal that dates back to 2016. The union is also seeking to shorten the 34-year wage scale to a comparable industry standard between 12 and 20, Huberty said.

Entry-level flight attendants now start at $21.53 an hour and top out at $53.56, union officials said. A flight attendant is considered full time around 82 to 85 hours a month on average.

The union doesn't want to disclose actual pay goals during negotiations but is focused on getting higher pay more quickly to be competitive with industry competitors like Spirit and Frontier.

Industrywide, flight attendants are paid for flight time. But that doesn't include all of their work, including when they're waiting for an aircraft or boarding passengers.

Sun Country's pilots approved a new contract in December 2021 that gives them a significant pay increase and an improved scheduling model for the airline's growth. The airline's fleet employees and mechanics also unionized in recent months.