Aloha Air flight
attendants to get
10% raise

The five-year-contract includes
profit-sharing and a
signing bonus

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Flight attendants at Aloha Airlines today said they will get a 2 percent pay raise each year until 2003 under a new union contract that also calls for profit sharing.

The 240 flight attendants overwhelmingly ratified the five-year contract, which also calls for extra pay for flight attendants working the airline's planned Honolulu-West Coast flights or its Honolulu-Pacific Islands service. The airline and the Association of Flight Attendants made separate announcements about the deal today.

"We were determined to make improvements to keep good jobs at Aloha and we were successful," said Peggy Gordon, president of the Aloha Airlines Master Executive Council of the AFA. She said the contract allows the flight attendants to share in the profits they make possible.

It also calls for a $300 bonus for each member when the contract is signed, she said.

Glenn Zander, Aloha president and chief executive, said the 10 percent pay increase through the five years of the contract "keeps our flight attendants' compensation package at or near the top of similar airlines."

The contract runs through Oct. 31, 2003.

With the AFA ratification, Aloha has now reached five-year pacts with all of the unions representing its workers, he said. They include the Airline Pilots Association, the International Association of Machinists and the Transport Workers Union. Aloha has about 2,500 employees.

The airline has 1,200 interisland flights a week in Hawaii and also operates a weekly scheduled service to the Marshall Islands and weekly charters to Johnson, Midway and Christmas islands. It plans to introduce daily service between Oakland, Calif., and Hawaii in February.