American Airlines has announced that it will lay off 19,000 workers on October 1, unless the airline industry gets more help from Congress.
12,500 employees had earlier agreed to leave the company with early retirement or buyout packages, and another 11,000 had agreed to voluntary furloughs for October.
The world’s largest airline, which had 133,700 employees heading into this year, says it will need to reduce headcount by “at least” 40,000 employees.
“Approximately 19,000 of our team members will be involuntarily furloughed or separated from the company on October 1,” American said in a regulatory filing, explaining the cuts are needed because flights have not recovered amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“The only problem with the legislation is that when it was enacted in March, it was assumed that by September 30, the virus would be under control and demand for air travel would have returned,” said the letter.
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“That is obviously not the case. Based on current demand levels, we at American now plan to fly less than 50% of our airline in the fourth quarter, with long-haul international particularly reduced to only 25% of 2019 levels,” they added.
However, the company said the job losses could be curbed if Congress extends a program under the CARES Act rescue package that helped airlines struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic retain their staff through the end of September.
The airline also announced last week it would suspend service to 15 US smaller markets in October as a cost-cutting move. Cutting service to cities it had served is another measure that the CARES Act prohibited before October.
