Job fates up in the air
Flight crews in Orlando, elsewhere concerned about jobs as CARES Act deadline nears
Co-pilot Clint Hill settled into the cockpit of a Delta Air Lines 757 at Orlando International Airport this week for a preflight routine and wondered whether he will have a job next month.
With a wife and 10-month-old son at home in Atlanta, he hopes Congress will authorize billions of dollars in relief for airlines before they shed tens of thousands of jobs.
“I’m a junior pilot and without it, I will be furloughed in October,” Hill said. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to be for a long time, at least a year.”
The initial $32 billion in payroll support that airlines received from the CARES Act prohibits job cuts until after September. Airline CEOs and union leaders have been lobbying Congress and the White House for further airline payroll support. United Airlines, meanwhile, warned Florida officials this summer that it would cut nearly 500 workers at Orlando’s airport in early October.
“We believe air travel will remain at historic lows until at least through the beginning of 2021,” said Robert Martinez Jr., president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. “That’s why we are calling on Congress to provide airline workers ... another round of relief that we so desperately need.”
While pushing for federal help, airlines are attempting to get revenues back on track. Delta has been holding public events at its major cities in the U.S., conveying a commitment to regaining travelers’ confidence.
This week, as Hill got ready for his flight at Gate 71, Delta’s Orlando general manager held a brief media presentation near the customer service counter, talking through a black mask to a bundle of microphones.
Michael Kroll, said every aircraft is disinfected before each flight, and “each seat, TV screen, seat belt buckles, window shades, air vents and all the high-touch surfaces will get wiped down. We are ready for our customers, when our customers are ready to travel,” he said.
Travelers so far are slow to return to Orlando’s airport.
The Labor Day weekend at Orlando’s airport saw nearly 30,000
outbound travelers on each of two days, by far the most since March. Before the pandemic, the airport was maintaining an average of more than 70,000 outbound passengers a day. The rest of September is a historically slow stretch.
“We are seeing a reduction in flights not only this month, but we are seeing the schedules revised in October that reduces flights,” airport director Phil Brown said. “Right now the airlines change on almost a weekly basis. They are all attempting to crack the code as to where the demand is and where to fly.”
The Delta 757 at Gate 71 would be limited to 60% of capacity. Of 199 seats, 118 could be filled, ensuring open middle seats in coach and vacant adjoining seats in first class. Delta has announced it will continue the 60% cap for its aircraft until Jan. 6.
Seating polices of other major airplanes vary, from United, which does not keep middle seats open, to Southwest, which announced last week it would not fill middle seats until after Thanksgiving.
Shortly after Kroll’s remarks, a worker donning goggles and gloves, and shouldering a backpack with a tank, entered the 757 and misted seats, luggage bins, walls and windows.
The “electrostatic” treatment, along with high-volume, high-efficiency air filtration systems are used widely by airlines.
The worker’s backpack pump made a purring sound and its hose nozzle hissed as it ejected a liquid disinfectant formulated to be non-corrosive for aircraft and electrically charged to cling to whatever it touches.
The liquid, with a mild smell that suggested cough syrup, left a glossy, evaporating film on surfaces. A team of workers followed behind with hand sprayers, wiping down the hightouch surfaces described by Kroll.
Denise Weaver, 55, of Hartford, Conn., has traveled often during the pandemic to visit her ill sister in Orlando. Weaver has rheumatoid arthritis and has always used sanitizing wipes to clean her seat and tray.
Before the pandemic, the wipes would be smudged with grime. Now, they come up spotless after a wipe down, Weaver said, waiting at Gate 71.
“Even people who travel a lot,” said veteran Delta flight attendant Carlos De La Hoz Orozco, “they can be anxious because they have the security point and boarding and everything else now. It’s been pretty nice to see the smiles of people when they get on the plane.”
Winning trust has been gradual and uneven for the industry.
In the Gate 71 area, Kelly Carey, 22, and her boyfriend were minutes from boarding for a vacation. They had purchased tickets before the pandemic and decided to use them for their first flights since March.
Carey’s mood was undermined soon after entering Orlando’s airport when a passenger standing alongside her in the TSA security line pulled off his mask to talk to an agent.
“My real worry is having to be in a plane for so long with so many people,” she said.
But another passenger, Starbucks cup in hand, said “I feel like it’s cleaner in an airplane than in a hospital.” He declined initially to give his name but returned, saying he has traveled recently on many airlines, and wanting to stress a concern.
He is from the west Orange County area, he said, where unemployment among theme park workers has soared. It’s time for people to vacation again because “it’s safe to fly,” said David Tennant, 43.
Delta expects to grow its schedule from Orlando as the holidays draw near.
Before the rise of COVID-19, Delta had operated 60 to 70 daily flights out of Orlando, a frequency that plunged to five by April. The airline is back to 23 daily flights, with expectations of 29 next month and 31 in November.
On the ramp area of Gate 71 under the 757’s belly, and beneath the plane’s name emblazoned on the fuselage, “Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowrey, DEAN OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT,” a 27-year veteran of Delta wondered about the days ahead.
Orlando operations service manager David Stavre said 97 workers in his division have voluntarily departed.
Across Delta’s workforce, more than 40,000 employees volunteered for unpaid leave, reducing the pressure for layoffs. Among them, Stavre took a month off. Nearly 17,000 others in the company resigned or retired. The airline cut daily costs from $100 million in March to $27 million in June.
“Nobody has been forced to do anything,” said Stavre, 49. That could change in the coming week, but he hopes it doesn’t. His airline job, he revealed in several comments, is his passion. “I want to work here until I’m 70.”
Delta got the Atlanta flight off at 11:03 a.m., seven minutes ahead of schedule, with 118 passengers on board — 60% of its capacity.