Delta Air Lines told employees Tuesday they will receive a 6 percent pay raise next year, adding to the huge raise and profit-sharing it gave workers earlier this year.

The company said it was lifting wages in early April at all steps of its pay scale for flight attendants and ground workers, including about 6,000 who work or are based at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. It also covers hundreds more at reservation call centers and maintenance facilities that Delta operates around Minnesota.

"We are delighted to be able to continue to share the rewards of your hard work with you," Ed Bastian, Delta's chief executive, said in a memo announcing the boost. "It's well deserved."

The union that represents Delta's pilots recently reached a new contract with the airline, and pilots are voting this month whether to accept it.

In announcing the new increase for its hourly workers, Atlanta-based Delta said it is also increasing the company's automatic contribution to workers' retirement accounts to 3 percent of pay. The airline already matches employees' own contributions to their retirements up to 6 percent of pay.

At the start of this year, Delta lifted the base pay of all hourly employees by 14.5 percent and, this spring, it paid out profit-sharing bonuses that averaged out to 21 percent of its workers' base pay.

Those moves reflected the company's soaring profitability and pressure that all U.S. employers came under to raise wages as the country's workforce inched closer to a level that economists consider full employment.

The Atlanta-based airline last year made a record $4.5 billion profit and has made $3.75 billion in profit through the first nine months of this year, up 6 percent from the same period last year.

Delta has about 1,800 flight attendants based in Minnesota and more than 3,100 ground-crew workers at MSP. It has about 1,000 other employees in reservations, in-flight services, customer care, technical operations and human resources.

About 10 percent of Delta's 12,000 pilots are based at MSP.

Evan Ramstad • 612-673-4241