February 16, 2026

We met last week in Chicago from February 10th-12th for Federal Mediation to continue our push for a revised Tentative Agreement. In this update, we want to provide insight of where we are in bargaining and what to expect moving forward.

Since we started bargaining in October, we have worked through many of the non-economic issues. These include fixes to language in areas such as Hotels and electronic notifications. Those discussions have gone well overall, and we have made progress in improving contractual language.

We are now at the stage where we are dealing with the remaining quality of life/Contract language issues. These have an economic cost along with the key economic provisions, including wage increases and retro pay. Last week, our discussions focused mainly on these major issues. At this stage, we are not putting out detailed information as things are shifting. This is standard in the final stages of bargaining.

We have two more scheduled sessions on March 3rd-6th and March 24th-27th. We have less than a dozen open issues left, all of which have been extensively discussed. We believe an agreement can and should be reached in March.

The company takes the position that the overall economics of the new Tentative Agreement will match the terms of the prior deal. As we discussed extensively during the ratification, that is something we anticipated and we have dealt with before. We believe we can reach an overall agreement on economics, although it will take some hard bargaining during our upcoming sessions.

We have been clear, however, that it is not just about money and that our work rules are crucial. We need quality of life improvements. As we have previously reported, we proposed targeted improvements in key areas identified by the membership in our surveys. We have a major fight in this area.

The company has taken the position that to get improvements in one of these key areas, we would have to give up on another. For example, to get sit rigs, we would need to eliminate Personal Time Off (PTO). To be absolutely clear, we are NOT getting rid of PTO. That obviously makes no sense, as we are not taking concessions in one area just to get improvements in another.

The remaining dates for negotiations in March are the last days of scheduled Mediation. We believe that, given the number of open issues and the progress we have made, we should be able to reach an agreement in March. But that will depend on progress in these key areas. Any revised Tentative Agreement needs to have clean, targeted improvements for Flight Attendants without corresponding concessions.

We have zero interest in delaying bargaining or extending these negotiations. We have made a lot of progress so far and can reach a deal. But if we do not, then we are prepared to aggressively move the process forward.

On a final note, you may be aware that United management has been communicating following negotiations sessions. Some of this simply makes no sense, like detailed explanations of PBS. The fact is, we are not spending any time negotiating PBS, and it is not going to happen in this round of bargaining. Our only real discussions have been to say it’s not happening.

While we cannot speak to their communication strategy, we know they actively monitor social media for reactions. We suggest our workgroup does not take the bait, as they may be testing the waters. We have plenty of resources, including our InfoReps/CAT, and your Local Council volunteers and Officers.

We have a major Membership Action Day (MAD) on March 19th. This event is critical for getting our message out to the public and sending a direct message to United management that we need our Contract now. If you have not been to a picket before, or are a repeat protester, we need you out there.