American Airlines to Cut 19,000 Jobs by October

It has not been a good year for the airline industry. Because of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, travel has been drastically reduced for not only casual passengers, but businesses commuters as well. A sharp downturn is putting it mildly, and at times there was as much as a 95% loss in travelers.

And in the middle of all of that, American Airlines announced on Tuesday that they will shrink their workforce by 30%, and will be cutting about 19,000 jobs by October. This coincides with the September 30th end of the stimulus. According to WWL, the job cuts can be avoided only if the Federal Government comes up with another $25 billion dollars, which will only cover six months worth of labor costs. In March American received $5.8 billion as part of a $25 billion package for passenger airlines. Air travel plummeted by as much as 95% due to the pandemic.

At the beginning of 2020 the airline employed around 140,000, and with 23,500 accepting buyouts, retiring early, or taking long term leaves of absence, they will have fewer than 100,000 employees by October. The majority of the cuts will be flight attendants, with 8,100 to be terminated by October.

Delta Airlines announced on Monday that they would be forced to furlough 1,951 pilots by October if they could not reach an agreement for cutting costs with the pilots union.

American, who has a home base in Ft. Worth, Texas, had announced earlier this month that they would be cutting service to at least 15 smaller cities across the USA. Read more about the dilemma the airlines are in due to COVID from WWL in New Orleans.