The American airline American Airlines announces that it will have to lay off another 13,000 employees due to the lockdowns. For some of them, that means the second discharge in six months. The reason for the impending intervention is the delay in summer bookings due to travel restrictions and virus anxiety among travelers.
According to CEO Doug Parker and president Robert Isom, the resignations required by the U.S. government will be sent February 5th. The announcement by American Airlines follows less than a week after United Airlines announced to thousands of its employees that their jobs are at risk.
The risk of dismissal underlines once again the malaise that the travel sector faces. Especially after the introduction of measures such as a ban on non-essential travel through many countries in the world . The vaccination campaigns are still at an early stage and the prospects for the coming months are not good.
The number of domestic flights is currently at 40% of the pre-crisis level, reported IATA on Wednesday. International flights account for 15% of ‘normal’ flights.
“At the end of 2020 we fully believed that we would look at a summer schedule where we would fly with all our planes and need the full strength of our team,” Parker and Isom write to the American Airlines staff. “Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. The vaccine is not distributed as fast as we thought, and new restrictions on international travel that require customers to have a negative Covid-19 test have dampened the question.”
According to the top men, the situation in the first five weeks of the New Year is not substantially different from that for much of 2020.
Leah Kunze just graduated MBA and is proud of it. She is interested in automotive industry and innovations. She well be glad to receive a mail to leah.kunze@economicinform.com
