In a first for United States-based carriers, Delta Air Lines will pay flight attendants during boarding beginning in late spring, the company announced Tuesday.

The Atlanta-headquartered airline company plans to compensate flight attendants on all flights as passengers board its planes starting June 2, it revealed in a memo to employees.

The additional pay will equal half of their hourly rates.

It is standard airline-industry practice to pay flight attendants only for the time during which the airplane's doors are shut.

"The addition of boarding pay to flight attendant compensation is a testament to Delta's longstanding commitment to deliver industry-leading pay to our industry-leading team while enhancing our operational reliability for customers," Delta said in a statement, as reported by The Hill.

The move comes amid the Association of Flight Attendants' campaign to unionize Delta Air Lines' more than 20,000 flight attendants.

The Association of Flight Attendants credits their efforts, which started in 2019, for the addition of boarding pay.

"(The) new policy is the direct result of our organizing, and a desperate attempt to prevent their other new boarding policy (D+40) from creating the kind of anger that it deserves," the association said, according to The Hill.

Delta announced in March a 4% pay raise for most of its 75,000 employees -- the first since the fall of 2019, according to CNBC.

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