American, United Airlines Prepare to Furlough Combined 32,000 Workers as They Hope for Stimulus Relief
After lawmakers failed to secure fresh financial relief for the airline industry, more than 32,000 combined workers with American Airlines and United Airlines face immediate furloughs, the two carriers said Wednesday.
American told its employees that it would begin furloughing 19,000 jobs as stimulus support dries up. United told its workers that it was set to furlough around 13,000.
Both carriers held out hope that a new federal relief package might materialize. But the deep cuts came as crushing blow after the pandemic pounded airlines' pocketbooks for months.
“I am extremely sorry we have reached this outcome,” American CEO Doug Parker wrote in a memo to workers. “It is not what you all deserve.”
Parker said he spoke late Wednesday with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and that glimmers of hope remained for a bipartisan deal. But, he wrote, “there is no guarantee that any of these efforts will come to fruition.”
At United, the number of anticipated furloughs have shrunk — the Chicago-based airline warned in July that almost 36,000 jobs were at risk — but the airline still acknowledged that Wednesday represented a “very sad day for all of us” in an evening message to workers.
United said it would unwind the furlough process if support from the federal coronavirus CARES Act is extended in the coming days. The CARES program, a stimulus law cobbled together at the onset of the American virus outbreak, had offered a lifeline to the air industry amid pandemic turbulence.
“We implore our elected leaders to reach a compromise, get a deal done now, and save jobs,” United said in its memo to employees.
———
©2020 New York Daily News
Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
