United Airlines is offering a once-in-a-decade opportunity for its flight attendants to transfer to a ‘dream location’ where they get to work for a U.S.-based airline but don’t actually have to live in the United States.
That location is none other than London – the last remaining flight attendant base that United operates outside the contiguous United States and Guam.
Dating back to United’s acquisition of Pan Am’s extensive slot portfolio at London Heathrow when the iconic airline went bust in 1991, United has now operated a sizeable flight attendant base in London for more than three decades.
Opportunities to join the team of more than 400 flight attendants at United’s London base are, however, incredibly rare. So rare, in fact, that it’s been more than 10 years since United last offered transfers to the base.
As you might, therefore, imagine, only the most senior of flight attendants who have been waiting on the transfer list for years are in with a chance of getting the opportunity to move across the Pond.
There are, however, some special considerations that flight attendants need to be aware of. The British government requires flight attendants working from the London base to live in the UK. A flight attendant couldn’t, for example, ‘commute’ from the United States or another country.
Veteran flight attendants might also find ‘reserve’ and standby rules different in London, and, it goes without saying, there are “large-scale” tax implications that crew members need to be aware of.
“For many Flight Attendants, London has been a dream location, whether returning home or the desire to operate out of an international base, we know the wait has been long,” the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) told its members in a memo confirming the news that the transfer list was opening up.
United used to operate a slew of international crew bases, but by 2020, that number had shrunk to just four: Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, and Tokyo.
Unfortunately, within months of the COVID-19 pandemic decimating the aviation industry, United came to the conclusion that it was no longer sustainable to keep these international bases open, with the exception of London.
The flight attendant union attempted to challenge the decision after approximately 840 flight attendants based in Frankfurt, Hong Kong, and Tokyo were told that they were at risk of redundancy, but an independent arbitrator ended up siding with United.
In the end, the two sides came to a compromise agreement: flight attendants who already had the right to live and work in the United States would be transferred to United’s bases there, while others who had the legal status to work in the UK would have the preferential right of reemployment should positions open at the London base until March 2023.
The reason that United decided to keep its flight attendant base at London Heathrow can be partly attributed to the sheer scale of the airline’s operation in the UK.
United currently operates up to 18 flights per day to London from seven airports across the United States.
It was once very common for international airlines to have crew bases dotted around the globe, although it has become increasingly rare in recent years.
One of the biggest remaining operators of international crew bases is British Airways, which still employs flight attendants in Bahrain, Cairo, China, India, Mexico City, and Japan.
While British Airways is motivated by having local crew to overcome language and cultural barriers, Helsinki-based Finnair was motivated to expand crew bases in countries like India in order to combat rising staffing costs in its native Finland.
Australian flag carrier Qantas also operates a sizeable flight attendant base at London Heathrow, while American Airlines has bases in Bogotá, Lima, Santiago, and Buenos Aires.
Earlier this year, Aer Lingus announced it was closing its only crew base outside of Ireland, with the shuttering of its Manchester, England operation. Aer Lingus argued the base was underperforming against its main Dublin hub.
It’ll be great for FAs who have commuted to England to have the opportunity to to be based at LHR. The compromise is that the flying is limited compared to the North America bases.
Let us not forget those hundreds of overseas United flight attendants, some of whom had been employees and AFA members for over thirty years, who got sacked by this corporation within six months in 2020 when UA mgmt refused to let them transfer to LHR (as had been best practice when other UA int’l bases closed in the past, like Santiago de Chile and flight attendants transferred to Frankfurt) and refused to put them on voluntary, unpaid leaves (to see whether the economy would recover a few years after COVID — as it did). The Frankfurt based crews with strong German labor laws in their favor were at least able to secure mininal severance payments in year-long lawsuits against United in German courts up until the end of 2025, which UA reluctantly paid to get rid of them after insisting that as a US carrier they were not bound by German law, while their co-workers in Tokyo and Hong Kong got nothing. What a coincidence that they open London for transfers now, that they don’t have to accommodate any of the former FRA flight anntendants there (lawsuits are over). Mind you, these int’l flight attendants had helped bring UA back on its feet after 9/11 with their service and continuously rated best in customers’ service surveys. That’s not how you treat your employees. And the AFA played Pontius Pilate in 2020, washing their hands in innoccence, after they agreed not to file grievances and an arbitrator ruled that the flight attendant contract did not specifically say that flight attendants of to-be-closed bases had the right to transfer to another base BUT that this didn’t mean that United mgmt HAD to let them go. UA sent out termination letters the next day.