American Airlines Inc. on Wednesday warned some 13,000 American employees that they could be on leave in the coming weeks, as the pandemic continues to affect travel and government money is gone.
In a letter to employees, American Airlines AAL,
he also criticized the speed of distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine and said he expects the lack of demand to continue until the summer.
Any impact on the work will take effect on or after April 1, when government payroll aid expires, the airline said in the letter on Wednesday.
Almost five weeks in 2021 “we are in a similar situation to most of 2020,” Chief Executive Doug Parker and President Robert Isom told officials.
With the extension of the Payroll Support Program at the end of last year, the company “fully believed that we would have a summer schedule in which we would fly all of our planes and would need all the strength of our team. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case ”, they said.
“The vaccine is not being distributed as quickly as any of us believed, and the new restrictions on international travel that require customers to have a negative COVID-19 test have reduced demand,” they said.
American is flying at least 45% less in the first quarter than in the first quarter of 2019 and, based on current prospects, will not fly with all of its aircraft in the summer as planned, the agency said.
The break notices, required by law in some areas, will come out on Friday, the company said. They “don’t necessarily equate to licenses,” the newspaper said. The company will work with union leaders “to do everything in our power to mitigate the impact on work as much as possible,” he said.
The unions are asking Congress to extend aid until September 30 and the company will help in that effort, he said.
American will also open an early retirement program, with some incentives depending on years of service, and a leave program, he said.
American Airlines shares fell 35% in the last 12 months, contrasting with gains of around 18% from the S&P 500 SPX index,