Flight attendants at Alaska Airlines work under a collective bargaining agreement that was agreed upon between the Seattle-based carrier and the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA). The current contract came into force in 2025, and annual salary increases are locked in through 2028.
We’ve broken down the entire contract into easy-to-understand sections that explain how much flight attendants at Alaska Airlines can expect to earn at different points in their career, from new-hire to senior flight attendant.
Along with the salary guide, we’ve delved deeper to find out what kind of benefits Alaska Airlines flight attendants can enjoy, from commuter protections to 401(K) provisions and uniform allowances. Read on for all the details.
The Contract
New hires begin their career with a 180-day (six months) probationary period, during which Alaska Airlines can discharge, discipline, or furlough without cause and without a hearing. Probationary Flight Attendants can’t voluntarily change domiciles more than once during this window, and aren’t eligible for voluntary temporary base swaps.
There’s no signing bonus or contract-completion bonus structure at Alaska in the way some fixed-term Gulf contracts operate. This is a permanent, ongoing employment relationship governed by seniority, not a fixed-term contract with a completion payout.
The Alaska Airlines Contract In Plain English
Before the numbers, it’s worth knowing the vocabulary used by Alaska Airlines, since it doesn’t match what you’ll see at every airline:
- TFP (Trip(s) For Pay) is Alaska’s unit of pay. Think of it as a points system rather than a straight hourly wage: instead of clocking hours, you earn TFP based on the mileage of the route you fly, and your paycheck is your total TFP for the month multiplied by your per-TFP dollar rate.
One TFP is roughly equivalent to 54 minutes of flying time (Alaska’s own contract uses a conversion of 1.11 TFP per block hour, so 1 TFP ÷ 1.11 ≈ 0.90 hours ≈ 54 minutes). That means a Year 1 rate of $32.96 per TFP works out to a genuine equivalent of roughly $36.59 an hour, not $32.96 an hour, since each TFP represents slightly less than a full hour.
It might make more sense with this example: a duty period that pays out 6.0 TFP is roughly equivalent to 5.4 hours of flying, at $32.96 × 6.0 = $197.76 for that duty period.
Alaska actually publishes this hourly-equivalent conversion itself, purely for comparing pay against airlines that quote a straight hourly rate. Here’s that conversion at Year 1, Year 5, Year 10, and Year 14:
| Seniority Year | 3/2/2025 | 3/2/2026 | 3/2/2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $35.52/hr | $36.59/hr | $37.68/hr |
| Year 5 | $47.18/hr | $48.60/hr | $50.05/hr |
| Year 10 | $64.38/hr | $66.31/hr | $68.30/hr |
| Year 14 | $82.42/hr | $84.89/hr | $87.43/hr |
- Sequence is Alaska Airlines’ word for a trip, one or more flights, and duty periods that start and end at your domicile.
- Domicile is the airline’s term for your crew base.
- Lineholder means you’ve been awarded a fixed monthly schedule through bidding.
- Reserve means you’re on call, available to be assigned a sequence with limited notice.
- APSB (Airport Standby) is a specific, shorter reserve status where you’re required to be at the airport rather than reachable at home.
- JA (Junior Assignment) is what happens when Crew Scheduling assigns you additional flying on a scheduled day off, or extra flying after a completed sequence. It’s paid at a premium (2.5x the trip rate), specifically because it isn’t voluntary.
- Deadhead means travelling as a passenger, sometimes in uniform, to get into position for a working flight. You’re still paid for this time, just at a different rate than working flights.
- DPM (Duty Period Minimum) and ADPG (Average Duty Period Guarantee) are two of several Minimum Pay Rules built into the contract to make sure a short or disrupted duty period still pays a reasonable minimum, rather than paying strictly for miles flown.
Insight: The TFP system takes a bit of adjusting to if you’re coming from a background that talks about pay in block hours. The honest way to think about it: the per-TFP rate below is the headline number, but the Minimum Pay Rules layered on top mean your actual pay most months comes out higher than a simple mileage calculation would suggest.
Alaska Airlines Flight Attendant Salary
Alaska pays on a step scale tied to years of Occupational Seniority, with a new step on each anniversary date. Here is the full confirmed scale from the 2025-2028 AFA-CWA contract, in dollars per TFP:
| Seniority Year | 3/2/2025 | 3/2/2026 (+3%) | 3/2/2027 (+3%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $32.00 | $32.96 | $33.95 |
| Year 2 | $34.00 | $35.02 | $36.07 |
| Year 3 | $36.25 | $37.34 | $38.46 |
| Year 4 | $38.50 | $39.66 | $40.85 |
| Year 5 | $42.50 | $43.78 | $45.09 |
| Year 6 | $48.00 | $49.44 | $50.92 |
| Year 7 | $52.50 | $54.08 | $55.70 |
| Year 8 | $54.25 | $55.88 | $57.56 |
| Year 9 | $56.00 | $57.68 | $59.41 |
| Year 10 | $58.00 | $59.74 | $61.53 |
| Year 11 | $59.65 | $61.44 | $63.28 |
| Year 12 | $62.25 | $64.12 | $66.04 |
| Year 13 | $72.00 | $74.16 | $76.38 |
| Year 14 (top of standard scale) | $74.25 | $76.48 | $78.77 |
From Year 16 onward, a Longevity Premium is added on top of the Year 14 rate: an extra $1.00 per TFP at 16 years, rising in the following steps: $1.50 at 20 years, $2.00 at 25 years, $3.00 at 30 years, $4.00 at 35 years, and up to $9.00 at 60 years.
A further 3% increase is scheduled for March 2, 2027, so these figures will step up again next year.
What You Actually Earn: The Honest Trajectory
Year one. New hires spend a real stretch of their early career on Reserve. Reserve lines are built with a minimum of 12 days off in a 30-day month (13 in a 31-day month), which means roughly 18 reserve days a month. Alaska guarantees Reserves the greater of 5.0 TFP for each reserve day or actual TFP flown or credited.
At the current Year 1 rate ($32.96/TFP), that works out to a contractual floor of roughly $2,966 a month (18 days × 5.0 TFP × $32.96), before Boarding Pay, per diem, or the $2.50-per-TFP-flown Reserve premium is added. That’s the guaranteed minimum, not the ceiling, a Reserve who’s actually flying most of those days will land higher once TAFB-driven per diem and Boarding Pay are counted.
Mid-career. By Year 7 ($54.08/TFP at current rates), a Lineholder flying a typical month’s worth of sequences, illustratively around 85-90 TFP, would earn somewhere in the region of $4,600 to $4,870 a month before per diem and premiums.
Alaska doesn’t publish a fixed monthly TFP guarantee for Lineholders the way it does for Reserves, since a bid line’s value depends on what’s available at that domicile that month, so treat this as an illustrative range rather than a contractual floor.
Senior crew. At the top of the standard scale (Year 14, $76.48/TFP), that same illustrative 85-90 TFP month comes to roughly $6,500 to $6,880 a month before add-ons, and crew with 16 or more years get the Longevity Premium on top of that. Senior crew holding international lines add $1.50 per TFP on those segments, and anyone working the “A” position adds a further $4.00 per TFP.
Worth knowing: The jump from Year 1 to Year 14 is more than double the per-TFP rate, and that’s before Boarding Pay, international pay, or the Longevity Premium are factored in. Seniority is the single biggest driver of both pay and quality of life at Alaska, as at every US carrier. It determines your step rate, your bidding power for lines and vacation, your base, and eventually whether you’re on reserve at all.
- Boarding Pay: an additional 0.5 TFP for every flight that boards and departs, paid on top of the base rate. Combined with base pay, a Year 1 Flight Attendant’s effective rate works out to roughly $34.81 to $46.14 per TFP depending on how many boardings land in a given duty period.
- Per diem: $2.75 per hour away from domicile as of March 2, 2025, rising to $2.80 on March 2, 2026, and $2.85 on March 2, 2027. It starts at check-in and runs until 15 minutes after your last flight lands, and it’s compensation for meals specifically.
- “A” position (senior/lead) pay: an additional $4.00 per TFP for whoever works the “A” position on a given flight.
- International pay: an additional $1.50 per TFP on any flight into or out of the US on an international route.
- Reserve guarantee: Reserves are guaranteed the greater of 5.0 TFP for each day of reserve availability or their actual TFP flown, plus $2.50 extra for each TFP actually flown or on Airport Standby.
- Premium Open Time (Premium OT): Crew Scheduling can designate certain open-time sequences (unassigned trips available for pickup) as Premium OT. Anyone who picks one up, whether a Lineholder or a Reserve, is paid a minimum of 1.5x the applicable trip rate for that sequence. Once posted, a Premium OT designation can’t be revoked, though the premium doesn’t apply if the sequence ends up assigned to or self-assigned by a Reserve as part of their normal reserve duties.
Worth knowing: Remember, TFP isn’t a straight stand-in for hours worked; it’s calculated from point-to-point mileage on each sequence, with a set of Minimum Pay Rules (a duty period minimum, an average duty period guarantee, and more) layered on top to protect pay on short or disrupted days. The practical effect is that a published hourly-equivalent rate almost always understates what you’re actually paid, because the minimums are designed to pay more than the raw mileage in a lot of everyday scenarios.
What Does This Look Like in Your Currency?
Based on the confirmed Reserve guarantee for a new hire (18 reserve days at 5.0 TFP per day, current Year 1 rate of $32.96/TFP, before Boarding Pay, per diem, or the Reserve flying premium), the guaranteed monthly floor of approximately $2,966 USD converts to roughly:
| Currency | Monthly Estimate |
|---|---|
| 🇬🇧 British Pound (GBP) | £2,330 |
| 🇪🇺 Euro (EUR) | €2,740 |
| 🇦🇺 Australian Dollar (AUD) | AU$4,540 |
| 🇨🇦 Canadian Dollar (CAD) | C$4,080 |
| 🇮🇳 Indian Rupee (INR) | ₹2,48,000 |
| 🇵🇭 Philippine Peso (PHP) | ₱169,000 |
Converted at approximate rates as of July 2026. This is the guaranteed contractual floor before US federal and state income tax, and before per diem, Boarding Pay, or the Reserve flying premium, real take-home is typically higher. Currency rates change, so check current rates before making any financial decisions. Seniority progression at Alaska is significant: a crew member with ten or more years of seniority, holding a line and flying more hours,
Flight attendants at Alaska Airlines pay US federal income tax and, depending on their state of residence, may also owe state income tax. Washington, where the largest base sits, has no state income tax; California, where three of the six bases are located, does.
Alaska Airlines Cabin Crew Benefits
- 401(k) match: dollar-for-dollar company matches up to 8% of eligible pay (rising to 8.5% from March 2026), plus an annual “true-up” contribution so crew who front-load their contributions early in the year don’t lose out on the full match.
- Vacation: 14 days after 1 year of service, rising to 21 days at 5 years, 28 days at 10 years, 35 days at 18 years, and 42 days at 25 years or more. Vacation is paid at 4.0 TFP per day.
- Non-rev travel priority: based on Alaska Airlines (or Alaska Air Group) seniority, not check-in time. That’s a genuine quality-of-life factor over time, since it means a junior crew member’s non-rev priority is fixed by hire date rather than something that can be improved by being first to the gate.
- Commuter policy: Alaska has a formal policy for crew who live outside their base. You can register as an “Air Commuter” (with a designated commuter city) or rely on Ground Commuting provisions, and both come with recovery options if a commute genuinely fails, for example, being reassigned to a later sequence, placed on Airport Standby, or granted a protected personal leave, rather than simply being marked as a No Show. Registered Air Commuters also get boarding priority over Company employees on pleasure travel and over other airlines’ staff on Alaska mainline flights. Ordinary heavy traffic or running out of gas don’t count as a legitimate commuting failure under the policy.
- Uniform: a uniform allotment of $892 every two years to purchase required and optional pieces, including up to $250 toward Company-approved winter boots. Crew aren’t required to buy every basic-uniform item, just enough to be uniform-compliant.
- Sick leave: accrues at a rate of roughly 1 TFP for every 10 TFP flown, split between a state sick bank and a CBA sick bank, and is paid at 100% of the appropriate trip rate.
- Holiday pay: double time on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and Independence Day.
- Insurance: a PPO medical/dental/vision plan intended to track the benefits offered to Alaska’s pilots, with contribution increases contractually capped year to year.
- Productivity Premium Program: a twice-yearly incentive (not classic airline profit sharing) paying $500 for qualifying in the March–May block and $2,000 for qualifying in the June–August/December block, based on flying meaningfully more than your bid award.
- Minimum flying to keep Company-paid insurance: you need to fly or be credited 480 TFP across the calendar year (worked TFP, sick leave TFP, and vacation credit all count toward this) to keep Company-paid medical, dental, and vision. Fall short and you can either go without coverage for the rest of the year or pay the full premium yourself, with Company-paid coverage restored the first full month after you hit the threshold again.
- Long Term Disability: fully Company-paid, no premium cost to you. Pays 50% of your average monthly TFP earnings if you become disabled, up to a $5,000 monthly cap, after a 180-day waiting period.
- Maternity and parental leave: Alaska doesn’t structure this as a flat number of paid weeks. Instead, leave is coordinated with your existing sick leave and/or vacation banks, plus Short Term Disability where applicable, to maintain pay and insurance during the leave. One distinct benefit: Flight Attendants on Maternity Leave get 12 weeks of pass travel benefits they can use any time between the start of leave and 120 days after the pregnancy ends.
Worth knowing: Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants currently work under separate contracts and separate seniority lists, and integration talks between the two AFA-CWA groups are ongoing rather than settled. Everything in this guide reflects the standalone 2025-2028 Alaska CBA. A new hire joining Alaska today is joining the Alaska seniority list as it exists now, not a merged
Training Pay
Initial training is unpaid, but Alaska pays a $40 daily per diem for the duration of the six-week training course in Seattle. Hotel accommodation is also provided on a single occupancy basis throughout. Ongoing Recurrent Training, once you’re a working Flight Attendant, is paid: 6.0 TFP per training day, plus $150 for up to five hours of the associated home study.
