Delta Flight Attendants Sue For Overtime—36-Hour Week Still Triggers Extra Pay

Delta flight attendants are suing over unpaid work, including going through security, training and preparing aircraft for passengers. But the airline introduced boarding pay before its major U.S. competitors, and it’s already won a California Supreme Court ruling defending its compensation formula. This is a California lawsuit (naturally) and the state generally requires overtime after eight hours in a workday. A flight attendant could work just three days in a week and still accumulate significant overtime. And while Delta is headquartered in Atlanta, its LAX flight attendant base gives employees a California connection to sue. I’m skeptical of a claim for ordinary TSA screening before work. That claim is going to fail. But it’s plausible that required duties were left out of overtime calculations for California-based crew. What The Lawsuit Alleges According to Law360, a proposed class action filed in California state court on Friday, October 16 alleges that Delta failed to compensate nonexempt flight attendants for time spent: Undergoing security checks. Attending annual staff training. Preparing aircraft for boarding. Cleaning planes. Performing other work-related duties. Flight Attendants Can Earn Overtime Without Working A 40-Hour Week A flight attendant’s monthly flight hours don’t tell us how many hours they worked. Required briefings, aircraft preparation, boarding and other duties can add time beyond the flight itself. And California’s daily overtime rule is that overtime is due for more than 8 hours in a day, not just over 40 hours in a week. But Delta Already Won A Major California Pay Formula Case In Oman v. Delta Air Lines, the California Supreme Court upheld Delta’s compensation structure against a minimum wage challenge in 2020. The court rejected the argument that work without separately assigned compensation was necessarily unpaid. The mere argument that flight attendants aren’t separately paid for specific kinds of work like preparing for a flight isn’t going to fly on its own. Delta Doesn’t Have To Pay For TSA Screening In January, I wrote about a Delta Sky Club worker seeking pay for time waiting at airport security. That just doesn’t qualify under California law. In Cazares v. Host International, an LAX Admirals Club employee sought compensation for airport security screening. The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal because the allegations didn’t establish employer control during federally mandated screening. California compensability turns on employer control, not just necessity. Security screening is compensable when: it is required by the employer administered at the employer’s direction and the employer controls the manner, timing, or conditions of the screening. TSA screening is none of those things. Delta doesn’t manage the checkpoint, control wait times, staffing, or what an individual goes through during screening. They lack the ability to waive or modify screening. Boarding Pay And Non-Union Crew Make Delta A Target Delta introduced separate boarding pay in June 2022, using half the flight attendant’s flight hour rate and scheduled boarding duration. Historically, union contracts concentrated compensation in higher flight-hour rates instead of separately paying for boarding. That favors senior employees who bid schedules with fewer, longer flights over junior crew schedules with more short flights and repeated boardings. The old structure redistributed compensation from junior crew to senior ones. Meanwhile, Delta’s nonunion status can make it more exposed to this particular type of lawsuit. California’s transportation wage order excludes employees covered by collective bargaining agreements under the Railway Labor Act from many provisions, including its overtime rules. Union contracts also usually get federal preemption from state law. A dispute requiring interpretation of disputed contract terms gets forced into the Railway Labor Act’s arbitration process. I’ve covered related overtime litigation against American and Southwest. Delta doesn’t have the same flight attendant preemption argument available. Airline employees are generally exempt from federal overtime requirements, whether unionized or not. That doesn’t automatically exempt them from state overtime law. Delta’s LAX Crew Base Gives A Jurisdictional Hook Delta is headquartered in Atlanta, but it maintains an LAX flight attendant base. For employees based there, California is their work base, rather than merely a state they occasionally fly through. In Oman, the court held that Delta’s out-of-state location didn’t shield it from California wage statement requirements for California-based employees. Delta does get to contest, though, whether California’s rules cover particular hours worked outside the state. My bet is that Delta defeats claims for TSA screening pay and beats any argument over the absence of separate pay for specific tasks. However, to the extent that required work is omitted from overtime calculations and pushes LAX-based cabin crew over 8 hours in a day has a path. Interestingly, that’s money flight attendants would give up if they were unionized. Topics on this page