Skip to main content

American, United Airlines to begin furloughs for tens of thousands of workers as federal payroll program expires on October 1

american airlines
Employees watch as American Airlines Flight 903 prepares for take off from Miami in 2016.
  • American and United Airlines will begin furloughing tens of thousands of employees on Thursday as Congress fails to reach a deal on a COVID-19 relief bill.
  • American Airlines is set to furlough 19,000 employees, and United is expecting about 13,000, according to company announcements.
  • The federal Payroll Support Program (PSP) under the CARES Act passed by Congress in March expires on October 1.
  • "I am extremely sorry we have reached this outcome," American Airlines CEO Doug Parker wrote in the letter to employees. "It is not what you all deserve."
  • The House was set to vote on a $2.2-trillion stimulus package on Wednesday, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delayed the vote in a last-minute attempt to negotiate a deal with the White House, suggesting that both parties are coming closer to a bipartisan plan.
  • The company will "reverse our furlough processes and recall any impacted team members" in the event that Congress reaches a deal on the coronavirus stimulus package and extends the PSP, Parker wrote to employees.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

American and United Airlines will begin furloughing tens of thousands of employees on Thursday as Congress fails to reach a deal on a COVID-19 relief bill, according to company announcements.

American Airlines is set to furlough 19,000 employees, and United is expecting about 13,000, citing the respective notes to employees obtained by Reuters reporter David Shepardson.

The furloughs come in light of the federal Payroll Support Program (PSP) under the CARES Act passed by Congress in March expiring on October 1.

The House was set to vote on a $2.2-trillion stimulus package on Wednesday, but the vote was delayed in a last-minute attempt to negotiate a deal with the White House.

"I am extremely sorry we have reached this outcome," American Airlines CEO Doug Parker wrote in the letter to employees. "It is not what you all deserve."

"It is a privilege to advocate on behalf of the hardworking aviation professionals at American and throughout the industry, and you have my assurance that we will continue to do so in the days ahead," the CEO continued, adding, "We are not done fighting."

In a note to employees, United announced that, "after months of aggressive cost-cutting and proactive debt-raising actions to manage the company through the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on our business, we regrettably are forced to move forward with the process of involuntarily furloughing 13,000 of our United team members."

Both companies mentioned that they will reverse the furlough process in the event that Congress reaches a deal on the coronavirus stimulus package and extends the PSP.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said they made progress towards an agreement on the relief bill, and the House Speaker canceled the Wednesday vote, suggesting that both parties are coming closer to a bipartisan plan.

"We made a lot of progress over the last few days," Mnuchin told reporters. "We still don't have an agreement, but we have more work to do and we're going to see where we end up."

Read the original article on Business Insider


from Business Insider https://ift.tt/3cJC5Qm
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nintendo Switch has been the US’s bestselling console for 23 straight months

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge It’s been a good two years for the Nintendo Switch. According to Nintendo, the gaming tablet has been the bestselling console in the US for 23 straight months. And according to data from the NPD Group, it just had its best October ever, moving 735,926 units of both the Switch and Switch Lite in the US. The company says that represents a 136 percent increase compared to last year. To date, the Switch has sold 22.5 million units in the US, and last week Nintendo revealed that more than 68 million units have been sold globally . “We’re excited about our momentum,” says Nick Chavez, Nintendo of America’s SVP of sales and marketing. Chavez puts the company’s big October down to two main factors. One is a better supply of stock; this year in particular, it’s often been hard to find a Switch on store shelves. This has only been exacerbated by increased demand due to a combination of the pandemic and the breakout success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons . ...

Instagram accidentally reinstated Pornhub’s banned account

After years of on-and-off temporary suspensions, Instagram permanently banned Pornhub’s account in September. Then, for a short period of time this weekend, the account was reinstated. By Tuesday, it was permanently banned again. “This was done in error,” an Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch. “As we’ve said previously, we permanently disabled this Instagram account for repeatedly violating our policies.” Instagram’s content guidelines prohibit  nudity and sexual solicitation . A Pornhub spokesperson told TechCrunch, though, that they believe the adult streaming platform’s account did not violate any guidelines. Instagram has not commented on the exact reasoning for the ban, or which policies the account violated. It’s worrying from a moderation perspective if a permanently banned Instagram account can accidentally get switched back on. Pornhub told TechCrunch that its account even received a notice from Instagram, stating that its ban had been a mistake (that message itse...

MVP versus EVP: Is it time to introduce ethics into the agile startup model?

Anand Rao Contributor Share on Twitter Anand Rao is global head of AI at PwC . The rocket ship trajectory of a startup is well known: Get an idea, build a team and slap together a minimum viable product (MVP) that you can get in front of users. However, today’s startups need to reconsider the MVP model as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) become ubiquitous in tech products and the market grows increasingly conscious of the ethical implications of AI augmenting or replacing humans in the decision-making process. An MVP allows you to collect critical feedback from your target market that then informs the minimum development required to launch a product — creating a powerful feedback loop that drives today’s customer-led business. This lean, agile model has been extremely successful over the past two decades — launching thousands of successful startups, some of which have grown into billion-dollar companies. However, building high-performing product...