- American Airlines and United Airlines are warning thousands of workers to prepare for next year.
- Managers blame the lack of demand for new travel restrictions and a slow deployment of the vaccine.
- Hawaiian Airlines has also notified labor authorities that more than 800 employees may be based.
- Visit the Insider Business Department for more stories.
Two of the largest airlines in the country are preparing for another round of plans in April, as the wage support program expires and travel will not improve significantly before spring.
United Airlines and American Airlines did not surprisingly say that about 13,000 of their employees would be plowed in April, as external factors would continue to hamper the slow recovery of aviation. In a letter to employees, U.S. executives cite new international travel restrictions that require a negative COVID-19 test to enter the country and a delayed vaccine deployment as the main reasons for concern.
“The vaccine is not spreading as fast as one of us believed, and new restrictions on international travel requiring customers to undergo a negative COVID-19 test have dampened demand,” said Doug Parker, CEO of American, and Robert Isom, American president, said in the letter.
Parker and Isom said they initially thought plans would not be necessary because the emergency approval of two coronavirus vaccines and the pent-up demand for travel could presumably increase the summer’s bookings.
“As we concluded last year with the successful extension of the Payroll Support Program (PSP), we fully believed that we would look at a summer schedule where we would fly all our aircraft and require the full strength of our team,” Parker said. and Isom said. “Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.”
At American, flight attendants will be most affected with 4,245 of the approximately 13,000 notices scheduled to be sent to the working group from February 3rd. Navy service workers – including baggage handlers – and pilots are hit the following with 3,145 and 1,850 notices, respectively, issued to those working groups.
On Capitol Hill, unions are already urging Congress to expand the wage support program to prevent the looming round on April 1, the industry’s new day of judgment. Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, testified before the House Committee on Transport and Infrastructure on February 4 to raise the issue to keep the program going.
“A PSP extension until September 30, 2021 will keep hundreds of thousands of airline workers up to date with certificates and safety exemptions that will be needed when more normal travel can resume,” Nelson said.
“We fully support our union leaders’ efforts to fight for an extension, and we will spend our time and energy supporting this effort in every way possible,” Parker and Isom said.
The latest stimulus bill passed in December 2020 raised $ 15 billion for airlines to bring workers back, but executives have already said the memories are unlikely to be permanent.
“The truth is that we see nothing in the data that shows a big difference in discussions over the next few months,” United chief executive Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart wrote in a letter to December. “Therefore, we expect the recall to be temporary.”
Just one month later, their predictions turned out to be accurate, and the company plans to fight about 14,000 employees after March 31, according to an internal memo seen by CNBC.
“Despite ongoing efforts to distribute vaccines, customer demand has not changed much since we recalled employees,” executives reportedly wrote in a January memo.
Hawaiian Airlines is also preparing for workers, though the airline has told officials in the 50th state that it will receive only about 800 notices. Travel to Hawaii has increased as the state has adopted a testing strategy for visitors, but the airline says demand is not high enough to retain its staff.
The country’s airlines have suffered from historically low passenger numbers despite a promising holiday travel season that raised millions in the air in the days surrounding Christmas and Thanksgiving. New statistics from the Transportation Safety Administration also reveal that the daily passenger numbers for US airports in 2021 exceeded only three days.
If Congress passes another round of support, the cycle will only continue until demand arises, which could take months, as public health officials warn even vaccinated Americans not to travel.
“Being vaccinated does not mean now that I have a free pass to travel,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a CNN City Hall.