Amy Ticknor, a flight attendant who’s among the many 19,000 individuals American Airways is furloughing, spent Thursday submitting for unemployment insurance coverage and taking good care of her 6-week-old and 2-year-old daughters. She additionally began trying to find a full-time job — her husband is self-employed and her job supplied the household with medical insurance.
Ms. Ticknor, who can also be on the seventh week of a 10-week maternity depart, mentioned she had been heartened by the lobbying efforts of her union, the Affiliation of Skilled Flight Attendants, however was disenchanted when it turned clear on Wednesday {that a} second spherical of federal funding was unlikely.
“It was devastating,” Ms. Ticknor, 29, mentioned. “It was an actual a blow to all the pieces, my household life, my emotional well-being.”
Southwest Airways and Delta Air Strains, the nation’s different two giant nationwide airways, have prevented sweeping furloughs due to non permanent depart and different voluntary applications, a minimum of for now. Greater than 40,000 Delta employees signed up for short- and long-term unpaid depart. The corporate has mentioned that it might nonetheless furlough about 1,700 pilots subsequent month. Practically 17,000 staff at Southwest have signed up for leaves, buyouts or early retirement, and the corporate has mentioned it received’t furlough any employee via the tip of the yr.
“They’ve very, very sturdy company cultures and I feel these cultures had been on exhibit in how these airways have been capable of keep away from the furloughs,” mentioned Henry Harteveldt, founding father of Environment Analysis Group, a journey evaluation agency. “Delta and Southwest had been capable of message extra successfully.”
American and United have every additionally taken out Treasury Division loans of greater than $5 billion, which might develop to $7.5 billion every on the administration’s discretion. Southwest and Delta declined the loans, which had been approved by the March stimulus regulation, the CARES Act. Throughout the business, airways have raised billions from quite a lot of sources.