Over the last year, American Airlines  (AAL) – Get Free Report loomed closer and closer to the disruption caused by an employee strike.

While the Fort Worth-based airline’s pilots secured a new four-year agreement and $9 billion collective pay increase package in August 2023, almost a year of negotiations failed to bring with it an agreement with the union representing the airline’s 26,000 flight attendants while the request to start a series of strikes during the holidays was struck down by the federal government’s National Mediation Board (NMB) last November.

Related: Flight attendant gives reasons for quitting in viral video: ‘It’s aviation, nothing is guaranteed’

Now that one of the year’s busiest flying periods is behind us, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) is preparing to make another request to start a series of targeted talks after two other rounds of negotiations with American Airlines in Tampa in late December and Dallas on Jan. 9 and 10 ended in a similar deadlock.

Union accuses airline of ‘clinging to their rigid economic framework,’ requests right to strike

“At these sessions, American Airlines management had every opportunity to present another economic proposal,” the union explained in a memo released to its members on Jan. 16. “They did not. Instead, they have chosen to cling to their rigid economic framework that does not address our current economic needs.”

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According to labor laws, the NMB needs to give the union permission to enter into a 30-day “cooling off period” that needs to elapse before a strike is to begin. The proposed job action would also not likely be a complete disruption of service but targeted walkouts in different cities such as Dallas and Minneapolis at different periods during the strike period.

The deadlock comes due to American Airlines being unwilling to offer the flight attendants an 11% pay raise over the next four years and not budging closer to the middle of the union’s initial request for a nearly 50% pay raise over the same time period.

Here is what needs to happen before flight attendants strike

“APFA will be approaching the National Mediation Board this week to reiterate our request to be released into a thirty-day cooling off period,” the union said further in the memo.

But despite the growing frustration, a number of hurdles still stand in the way of an authorized strike. The NMB has not approved an airline workers strike since 2010 and, according to the same note sent out to American Airlines employees, doing it this year will not be a “simple task.” 

While the NMB did not provide the official reason for denying the request to enter the cooling-off period last November, it generally views strikes as a last resort and will do anything it can to avoid it. 

Flight attendants across different airlines have, in turn, been growing increasingly frustrated with their work conditions at a time when post-pandemic travel is at a high.

“It’s aviation, nothing is guaranteed,” an Australian flight attendant named Jane said in a viral TikTok video explaining why she quit. “Your shift for that day is not even guaranteed. Whatever you have tomorrow it is not guaranteed. You might just be going in for a day shift, next minute you might be away for four days.”