American to furlough 19K as clock runs out on airlines

American Airlines will begin furloughing 19,000 employees on Thursday after lawmakers and the White House failed to agree on a broad pandemic-relief package that includes more federal aid for airlines.

CEO Doug Parker said Wednesday night that if Washington comes up with a deal for $25 billion in airline aid “over the next few days,” American will reverse the furloughs and recall the employees.

The move by American represents the first — and likely the largest — involuntary jobs cut across the industry in coming days. United Airlines has indicated it could furlough nearly 12,000 workers.

Airline employees and executives made 11th-hour appeals this week to Congress and the Trump administration to avert furloughs when a federal prohibition on layoffs — a condition of an earlier round of federal aid — expires Thursday.

The passenger airlines and their labor unions are lobbying for taxpayer money to pay workers for six more months, through next March. Their request is tied up in stalled negotiations over a larger pandemic-relief measure.

Industry officials acknowledged that prospects were bleak for action before Thursday’s deadline. They said, however, they were cheered that the House this week included airline payroll help in a $2.2 trillion relief plan that moved closer to Republicans’ pref

erence for a lower price tag.

“It provides a glimmer of hope that something will get done,” said Nicholas Calio, president of the trade group Airlines for America.

Calio suggested that Thursday might not be a hard deadline — airlines could reverse some furloughs if a deal between the White House and congressional Democrats appeared imminent.

“Ideally, if it’s going to go beyond Thursday they will be close to a deal and say, ‘Hang on for a couple days,’ and we can wait,” he said. “Beyond that, the notices have gone and furloughs will go into effect.”

In March, Congress approved $25 billion mostly in grants to cover passenger airline payrolls through September and up to another $25 billion in loans that the airlines could use for other purposes. Late Tuesday, the Treasury Department said it completed loans to seven major airlines: American, United, Alaska, JetBlue, Frontier, Hawaiian and SkyWest.

The payroll aid came with conditions including a prohibition on involuntary layoffs or furloughs, but that ban ends after Wednesday. In announcing the closure of the loans to airlines, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made a pitch for Congress to extend the payroll help “so we can continue to support aviation industry workers as our economy reopens and we continue on the path to recovery.”

U. S. air travel remains down nearly 70% from a year ago.