America West Will Pay Flight Attendants $80 Million

America West Holdings Corp., the ninth-largest U.S. airline company, will pay its flight attendants about $80 million over five years under a tentative accord reached this weekend, the union said Monday.

The agreement averts a strike that could have disrupted travel during the spring break season. The company said as many as 130,000 weekend travelers might have been stranded without the accord, reached early Saturday. America West, with hubs in Phoenix and Las Vegas, makes about 600 flights a day.

The carrier and the union are meeting in Washington to complete a schedule to put the contract in place. The 2,300 flight attendants will receive a daily travel payment of $1.30 an hour in the first year; that will rise to $1.75 by the last year of the contract, said Assn. of Flight Attendants President Patricia Friend. Further details have yet to be released.

The low-fare carrier expects unit costs--the cost for each available seat mile flown--to increase about 1% this year from $7.29 last year. The company declined to comment further.

The attendants union plans to make highlights of the pact available to members no later than Monday. The union will travel to various cities starting April 5 to discuss the tentative contract with America West members. No date has been set for voting on the pact.

The two sides had been in the final round of federally mediated talks since Wednesday, the first sessions since the National Mediation Board declared an impasse and triggered a 30-day countdown to a strike.

The Phoenix-based carrier’s shares rose $1.13 to close at $18.75 on the New York Stock Exchange.