American Airlines Expects to Lay Off or Furlough Nearly 1,500 Mecklenburg Employees

Nearly 1,500 employees in Mecklenburg County will be out of a job – some of them permanently – starting in October, months after the company received $5.8 billion in payroll support from the government through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

Another 739 American Airlines employees in Wake County and 370 in Forsyth County also will be laid off or temporarily furloughed, according to American.

The federal money, a direct grant of $4.1 billion and a low-interest loan of $1.7 billion, according to the company, came with a requirement protecting American employees from involuntary furloughs or pay rate reductions. That requirement expires September 30.

“We hate taking this step, as we know the impact it has on our hardworking team members,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a letter to employees Wednesday. “From the time the CARES Act was signed in March, we had a stated goal of avoiding furloughs because we believed demand for air travel would steadily rebound by Oct. 1 as the impact of COVID-19 dissipated.

“That unfortunately has not been the case.”

Seventy-four American Airlines employees in North Carolina will be laid off permanently, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification report filed with the N.C. Department of Commerce.

Another 2,474 employees are expected to be furloughed temporarily starting on Oct. 1 and 40 more are expected to be furloughed starting on Nov. 1.

American Airlines did not say how long employees would be furloughed in the WARN notice filed with the Department of Commerce.

In January 2020, American Airlines had nearly 9,000 employees in Mecklenburg County who could be affected by the layoffs, according to the company.

American Airlines expects to have “over 20,000 more team members on payroll than we will need” in the fall, according to the letter from Parker and Isom.

The company is issuing 25,000 WARN notices — those notices include employees losing their jobs permanently, being furloughed or being moved to other locations, according to American.

The letter from Parker and Isom outlines several voluntary programs for employees to reduce the number of furloughs, including an extended leave program that provides partial pay and continued medical coverage and an early-out program.

———

Visit The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) at www.charlotteobserver.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.