Alaska Airlines Group Forced to Pay Flight Attendants $31 Million Over Wage Disputes

Alaska Airlines and Virgin America flight attendants won almost $31 million as part of a reevaluation of a decade-old class action lawsuit against the Alaska Airlines Group over wage disputes.

Years after the class action lawsuit was filed against the Alaska Airlines Group, a federal district judge in Northern California reevaluated the penalties the airline group was required to pay due to not properly compensating flight attendants. In the original decision made by Judge Jon S. Tigar in 2019, flight attendants were paid about $77 million in damages and penalties. Still, the airline group went to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to get the number reduced.

In the appeals court, most of Tigar’s ruling was upheld, but some parts were not, which required a recalculation of the fees paid. The US District Court for the Northern District of California handled the recalculation of fees and today determined that flight attendants were owed another $31 million and that the state was owed almost $12.3 million in penalties. The airline group sought a nearly 75% reduction of the penalty fees in the appeals court, but in the end, it only received a reduction of about 25%.

Read the source article at unitedafa.org