The Coming Apocalypse for U.S. Airline Labor
Photo Credit: Skift Airline Weekly / Illustration by Joanna Gonzalez
Skift Take
A travel recovery may be starting, but it may not be enough to save thousands of U.S. airline jobs. Unless Congress acts to extend payroll protections, mass layoffs could start on October 1.
Throughput at U.S. airport checkpoints, TSA figures show, is rising fast from its April lows. Twice last week, volumes topped 600,000, compared with fewer than 90,000 in mid-April. It’s still a small fraction of what a typical June looks like, but people are indeed traveling more as summer begins. Green shoots, perhaps.
But there’s a reckoning coming.
Airlines may be adding back flights and re-opening routes, but major U.S. carriers say their revenues are about one-quarter what they had planned for the summer. And it could take two or three years for demand to recover to pre-Covid levels, particularly for long haul international flights. In the meantime, the industry has no choice but to shrink.
When Congress passed the CARES Act stimulus earlier this year, it stipulated that airlines taking federal payroll support funds would have to avoid involuntary layoffs or furloughs through September 30. So for legions of airline workers, winter is coming as that fateful fall date a
