However, carriers are still dealing with “higher-than-usual absenteeism”, and the industry now “requires more staff to operate fewer flights”, A4A adds. The airlines cancelled 0.7% of flights in September, excluding flights impacted by Hurricane Ian, says the group.Ī4A also says US airline employment is at a “record high”, with 773,000 people working in the industry in August. Trade group Airlines for America (A4A) says its airline members “have been working diligently to address operational challenges by hiring additional staff and reducing our schedules”. Other carriers – Alaska Air Lines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines – have more staff now than before. In August, United’s workforce was 9% less than two years earlier, and American Airlines’ headcount was down 5%, according to the DOT. US government data shows that some carriers have yet to return to their pre-Covid employee counts. The government prohibited airlines taking those funds from laying off staff, but carriers still enticed thousands of workers to leave by offering voluntary separation packages.Īirlines are now facing heat for having too few employees despite burning through so much government cash, an outcome Buttigieg calls “surprising, puzzling and frustrating”. The US government propped up the airline industry during the pandemic with some $54 billion in employment aid. “Certainly, need to be prepared to service the tickets they sell. Last summer, Buttigieg says, carriers scheduled more flights than they could operate. Those same restrictions led carriers to significantly reduce their workforces, and in recent months many US airlines have said they have too few pilots. He attributes the problem to “unrealistic” flight scheduling by airlines at a time of rapidly rebounding demand for air travel following Covid-induced travel restrictions. That rate shot to 4% on some weekends last summer – a swing that made “all the difference in the world in terms of whether the system is able to catch up and keep up”, Buttigieg says. US airline flight cancellation rates typically hover around 1%. “The majority of are not the result of air traffic control staffing”. US Department of Transportation (DOT) secretary Buttigieg shot down that assertion on 18 October. “The issue that we’ve had this summer… is air traffic control staffing,” United Airlines chief executive Scott Kirby said in September. Decade of Airline Excellence Awards 2020.Airline Business special: CEOs to watch in 2021.FlightGlobal Guide to Business Aviation Training and Safety 2021.EDGE: A new global force in aerospace and defence.Shell Aviation: What will it take to Decarbonise Aviation?.What does the future of aviation look like in 2022?.Guide to Business Aviation Training and Safety 2022.What will it take to Decarbonise Aviation?.A new episode of the Airline Business podcast is available - listen now.
SUMMER MELTDOWN UPDATE
Airline Business Covid-19 recovery tracker: November update.
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