Status This Week
The NMB’s September 14–18 weekly report opened docket T-543 for Horizon Air Flight Attendants represented by AFA and identified M. Donatelli as mediator. This is the clearest official process development in the nine conventional trackers this week.
Contract timing: Horizon’s Flight Attendant agreement became amendable on 2024.05.01. As of 2026.09.18, 2 years, 4 months and 17 days—870 days—had elapsed since that amendable date. CWA-AFA has described the first NMB-mediated session as beginning 2025.06.23; 1 year, 2 months and 26 days—452 days—had elapsed since that session.
Process Signals
- The new docket is an authoritative administrative marker, but it does not necessarily mean mediator involvement began this week. CWA-AFA had publicly reported mediated sessions since June 2025, so the relationship between the earlier work and docket T-543 warrants clarification.
- CWA-AFA scheduled a targeted September 11 interest-based bargaining session concerning the Attendance Policy and preservation of a single sick-leave bank. No written result from that session was located by the September 18 cutoff.
- The union’s statement that the parties were moving closer to an overall impasse is an advocacy position, not an NMB impasse determination. The existing strike-authorization vote remains a solidarity and bargaining-pressure measure; it does not independently authorize a strike.
CrewSignal Assessment
Docket T-543 improves public accountability by giving the Horizon case a visible NMB identifier and named mediator. It does not resolve the more important substantive questions: whether the September 11 session protected the one-bank system, whether wage movement resumed and whether the parties are actually approaching a completed agreement.
After 870 days beyond the amendable date and 452 days since the union’s first reported mediated session, CWA-AFA’s institutional resources should now be measured against concrete movement, not the existence of a docket or mobilization campaign.
Notable Public References
- National Mediation Board Weekly Activity Report, September 14–18, 2026 — View →
- National Mediation Board FY2027 Congressional Budget Justification — View →
- Horizon CWA-AFA August Mediation Update and September 11 IBB Session — View →
- Horizon CWA-AFA Published Mediation Schedule — View →
- Horizon CWA-AFA First Reported Mediated Session, June 23, 2025 — View →
- Horizon CWA-AFA Explanation of the Strike-Authorization Vote — View →