Status and analytical scope
This page analyzes a rejected proposal, not a controlling agreement. Public reporting after the vote made clear that the tentative agreement failed ratification, so the duration language in the public TA should be read as proposed rather than operative.
That distinction matters. United publicly described the package as combining industry-leading wages, a signing bonus, and scheduling and quality-of-life improvements if ratified. After the vote, however, the public record also showed continued dissatisfaction around base pay, flexible scheduling, and work rules. This page therefore evaluates what the public TA actually said, not what either side hoped ratification messaging would accomplish.
Readers looking for current operative contract architecture should use the live United contract analysis. This page is best read as a structural comparison document showing what United bargaining publicly put on the table in 2025.
Pay scale and early-career economics
The clearest and most defensible gains in the rejected TA were economic. Section 4.A proposed 1st Year base rates of $36.92 at DOS, $38.03 at DOS + 1, $39.17 at DOS + 2, $40.54 at DOS + 3, and $42.06 at DOS + 4. It proposed 2nd Year rates of $39.15, $40.32, $41.53, $42.98, and $44.59, and 3rd Year rates of $41.65, $42.90, $44.19, $45.74, and $47.46. The table continued through 13th Year+, topping out at $84.78 at DOS and $96.58 at DOS + 4.
Section 4.B.1 also proposed incentive pay for all block hours flown in excess of 200:00 per calendar quarter, including vacation and deadhead, to a maximum of 330:00, except that no incentive pay would apply for block hours flown in excess of 110:00 in a bid month. Section 4.C preserved a meaningful floor by pay-protecting any awarded line with less than 71:00 original flight time line projection up to 71:00.
The public TA also carried a separate ratification-triggered One-Time Payment LOA. That formula was 4% of Eligible Earnings for the September 1, 2021 through December 3, 2021 bid periods, 4% for bid year 2022, 4% for bid year 2023, 14% for bid year 2024, and 25% for the January 2025 through July 2025 bid periods, payable as a single supplemental payment no later than October 31, 2025 if the TA had been ratified.
In comparative terms, this is where the proposal was strongest. The rejected TA clearly raised value, especially for earlier years and for high-production flying. The harder question was never whether there was money in the package; it was whether that money was enough to offset continued frustration with reserve, scheduling, and work-rule structure.
Reserve quality of life
The earlier draft needed tightening here. The public TA did contain real Ready Reserve Availability Period (RAP) language. Section 8.G.4 stated that there would be at least one scheduled RAP in a calendar day, that each RAP could be up to fourteen (14) hours, and that a Ready Reserve would not be required to be contactable outside their RAP. Section 8.G.5 then required the Company to publish RAP start times for the following day by 1500 the day prior and allowed reserves to preference RAPs, including standing bids by time band.
Those preference bands were not cosmetic. The public text allowed priority choices for Early, Mid, Afternoon, Late, and Full availability. It also limited assignments flowing out of RAPs in specific ways: open pairings could not check in more than three (3) hours after the end of the RAP, standby periods could not terminate more than four (4) hours after the end of the RAP, and a Ready Reserve not given an assignment would be automatically released at the end of the assigned RAP. RAPs could still be extended, however, by up to an additional five hours (5:00), no more than four (4) times per bid month, with three hours (3:00) of add pay when extended.
At the same time, this did not read like a clean reserve-system reset. The same public text still stated that, except for periods of relief from duty provided in Section 6 and the application of 8.G as it pertained to RAPs, a Ready Reserve would be subject to contact at any time. Other reserve architecture also remained dense rather than minimalist. Reserves still had twelve (12) calendar days off in a bid month, one Set block of at least four (4) days off that could not be assigned into, and rules allowing assignment into non-Set days off with defined pay consequences rather than a broad categorical bar. The Company could also build Reserve lines with up to sixteen (16) calendar days off in a month, subject to a proportionate reduction in guarantee.
That is the right comparative frame: the rejected TA proposed real RAP-based improvements, but it did not present the kind of reserve redesign that would reasonably be described as a full structural reset. The public record after the vote supports the narrower conclusion that reserve and scheduling changes were proposed, but not in a way that persuaded the membership the underlying burden had been solved.
Insurance and healthcare
Section 29 preserved a detailed, formula-driven healthcare architecture rather than substituting broad headline promises for contract language. For active medical coverage, the Required Monthly Contributions for the Core Medical Options, the Traditional Medical PPO, and Select Regional Medical Plans were capped so they would not exceed 20% of the total projected cost for the elected Coverage Tier, subject to credits and surcharges.
The public TA also preserved a year-over-year cost-growth limit. Any increase in the composite Required Monthly Contribution for the Core Medical Options, Traditional Medical PPO, Optional Medical Plans, and Select Regional Medical Plans from one calendar year to the next was capped at 9.25% of the prior year’s contribution. The text further preserved concrete cost-sharing mechanics such as a tobacco wellness credit of at least $48 per month per enrolled Flight Attendant and spouse or domestic partner and a spousal surcharge not to exceed $50 per month where alternate employer-subsidized coverage was available.
For plan-formula precision, the clearest language appears in Section 29.F.3.e.: the monthly contribution for a Select Regional Medical Plan, the Core Medical PPO, or the Core Medical EPO equals the total monthly cost of that plan minus the amount of the Company contribution that would apply for the same coverage tier under the Traditional Medical PPO. That is the kind of language that matters more than campaign shorthand because it actually governs what the benefit architecture does.
Comparatively, the healthcare story is continuity with guarded formulas. The rejected TA did not reinvent United benefits. It preserved a negotiated cost-sharing structure with measurable ceilings and detailed plan mechanics, which is meaningful, but it is different from a broad redesign of medical coverage.
Bidding, scheduling, and IRROPS protections
The public TA kept a heavily administered scheduling architecture rather than shifting to a simple no-touch reassignment model. Under Section 7.Q.2, if a Severe Weather Action Plan (SWAP) was in effect, the Company could provide a replacement pairing up to four hours (4:00) past the time the original trip was scheduled to depart, provide a replacement pairing at the time of notification, or provide a replacement pairing within two hours (2:00) of notification. If a Flight Attendant was required to remain available more than four hours (4:00) past the time the original trip was scheduled to depart, the TA provided an additional four hours (4:00) of pay and credit.
There were still meaningful boundaries. Reassignments could not be scheduled to depart earlier than two hours (2:00) before the scheduled departure of the trip lost. Reassignments also could not interfere with the next scheduled calendar day off without the Flight Attendant’s consent, and if a Flight Attendant consented to a reassignment using a scheduled day off, the TA paid 150% for all block hours flown on each scheduled day off used for the reassignment.
After leaving base, the public text still imposed some concrete outer limits. A reassignment for lost flying after departure from base had to return the Flight Attendant to base within twelve hours (12:00) of the original scheduled arrival and could not be scheduled to extend more than eight hours (8:00) into a calendar day off. If the reassignment drove four hours (4:00) or more into a day off, the day off had to be restored through mutual arrangement with Scheduling or replaced with five hours (5:00) of pay and credit in lieu of restoration, provided the minimum days-off floor was maintained.
IRROPS protections were therefore real, but still sat inside a reassignment-heavy framework. The clearest hard cap in this area remained Section 6.N.3: holding time was limited to four (4) hours at any one point or a total of five (5) hours during an on-duty period, with required rest and relief rules layered on top. This is meaningful contract language. It just is not the same as a structural removal of company discretion during disruption.
Retirement provisions
Retirement remained continuity-heavy. Section 29 preserved a 401(k)-centered structure, including pre-tax elective deferrals up to the annual Internal Revenue Code maximum, in-service withdrawals at age 59½ or for financial hardship, participant loans, and quarterly statements due within sixty (60) days from the end of the quarter.
The public TA also preserved a Retirement Board to hear and determine disputes arising under the 401(k) plan or the UK Group Stakeholders Plan. That is governance architecture, not a pension reset.
Just as important, the public TA still carried legacy retirement-related LOAs. CARP participation continued for eligible legacy Continental participants, and the CARP LOA stated that if CARP were terminated or frozen with respect to participating Flight Attendants, the Company would begin making contributions to the IAM National Pension Plan in an amount equal to $1.60 for each pay hour multiplied by 1.891, subject to the IAM plan maximum. The DB Plan Discussion LOA remained only discussion language: the parties would meet regarding whether a new cost-neutral defined benefit plan was practical, and neither party was under an obligation to agree to implement such a plan.
That is why the right comparative description is continuity, preservation, and discussion governance. The rejected TA did not publicly present a new defined-benefit pension for United Flight Attendants. It kept a 401(k)-centered system, preserved legacy retirement language where applicable, and carried forward discussion language about whether something different might ever be practical.
Comparative takeaway
As a comparison document, the rejected 2025–2030 TA is strongest on pay scale and early-career economics. That is where the public text is most specific, most numeric, and easiest to measure against peer agreements.
Reserve, healthcare, scheduling, IRROPS, and retirement all contain meaningful language and some real improvements. But they are mostly improvements within an already layered and highly administered contract. The public TA did not read like a clean-sheet rewrite. It read like a materially richer economic package laid over a contract architecture that still relied on procedure, sequencing, consent, restoration, and post hoc enforcement.
That combination is the key interpretive point. The rejected TA would likely have paid more and in several places paid meaningfully more. It did not, however, present the kind of broad reserve and scheduling re-architecture that many flight attendants evidently wanted. That is why this document is useful for comparison, but it should not be mistaken for operative contract language or for a ratified structural reset.