Airport businesses are rushing to hire employees for the winter travel season just as tourists cancel their plans in fear of COVID-19.
From Spirit Airlines to retailers and restaurants, employers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport are trying to fill roughly 800 openings, according to the Broward County Aviation Department, which is spearheading a job fair Sept. 29 at the BB&T Center in Sunrise.
The hiring push may or not be a gamble as travelers are reportedly showing a greater reluctance to book flights so long as COVID-19 remains a menace to public health.
A national survey of more than 2,200 people released Monday by the American Hotel and Lodging Association concluded that many U.S. leisure travelers plan to trim their plans amid rising COVID-19 cases. It found that 55% expect to postpone existing travel plans. Forty-two percent are likely to cancel plans and not reschedule them.
The survey is the latest effort by the association to extract aid from the federal government for a hotel industry in deep financial trouble.
“With COVID-19 cases rising and travel concerns mounting as we enter the fall and winter months, the hotel industry is at a pivotal point,” Chip Rogers, the association’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “Unless Congress acts, pandemic-related travel reductions will continue to threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of hotel workers.”
But many workers who were laid off when the pandemic gripped the economy in March 2020 — or who outright quit out of disdain for low pay and working conditions — have hesitated to return to the workforce.
Meanwhile, the airlines suffered a massive decline in passengers in 2020 but enjoyed a traffic rebound during the summer. Since then, they have flown through operational nightmares as they rebuilt staffs and reactivated planes that were grounded.
The extended decline in business had a ripple effect at airports that saw restaurants and retail shops at terminals across the nation close their doors and shorten their hours for a lack of customers.
Spirit Airlines, based in Miramar, experienced the industry’s most notable spate of cancellations and delays, blaming staffing and technical issues. And now the airline has joined American Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines in projecting declines in bookings from the fall into the winter. Spirit is also cutting back on the number of flights it intends to operate in the third quarter.
But the airline is among those companies seeking to hire employees, according to the aviation department The other employers looking to hire people include restaurants, shops, rental car companies, government agencies, fixed base operators and ground transportation providers.
A Spirit spokesman did not immediately have information Monday about its staffing plans and the openings the company is trying to fill.
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