United Airlines will offer triple pay to pilots who pick up extra flights due to bad weather and the omicron variant that has slammed the airline industry, with thousands of trips canceled since Christmas.
A flight operations executive with the company, Bryan Quigley, said in a staff note obtained by NBC News that pilots would earn three-and-a-half times their pay for additional flights between December 30 and Jan. 3.
The note says that they'll earn triple pay for flying extra between Jan. 4 and 29.
Quigley called the offer significant and said the company reached an agreement with the Airline Pilots Association in an effort to do everything we can to take care of our customers during this challenging time. More than 10,000 flights were canceled on December 23 by United, Delta Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and other carriers, according to CNBC. The companies blamed winter weather and spikes in sick calls because of the highly transmissible omicron variant spreading around the United States and world.
Nearly 1,600 flights were canceled into and out of the United States on Friday, according to tracking site Flightaware.
The airport in Denver, where a storm was expected to drop as much as half a foot of snow, had the most cancellations in the world, with 157 as of Friday afternoon.
While the temporary pay bump is in effect at United, rest requirements for pilots will be the same as will the number of hours they are allowed to work, a company official said.
The official couldn't give more details about what these limits are, but he said the main thing is that most pilots have room in their schedules within the limits to pick up extra trips, and this gives them additional compensation if they choose to do that. The union didn't respond to a request for comment about whether the agreement could leave their pilots dangerously exhausted.