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Airlines across the United States are announcing cuts to flight schedules and redundancies for staff as the rising cost of fuel really throws a spanner in the works of the industry.
Everyone’s already been concerned that fewer people are flying to their vacation this summer - not that driving is much cheaper - and airlines have started adding all kinds of charges to their basic ticket prices to try to regain some of the revenue they’re losing due to rising gas prices. Extra baggage charges, increased fees for carrying pets and oversize cargo and even higher costs for children traveling alone have all been added at one airline or another.
But apparently these extra charges are not enough, so now we’re on to a round of announcements about cuts and reductions. As well as reducing the number of flights to and from various destinations, airlines are also reducing costs by cutting employees, either through voluntary programs or forced redundancies. Some of the reductions include:
- United Airlines is cutting 950 pilots and reducing its capacity. They will retire 100 planes in the near future; they’ve already elimated 1,600 salaried jobs in the past year. There will probably be more jobs still to go.
- American Airlines is also cutting down dramatically. For example, at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, American Airlines is cutting 62 flights. It’s going to retire 85 planes and can’t say yet how many jobs it will eliminate. American Airlines services to some places, such as Providence, Rhode Island, Harrisburg in Pennsylvania and Albany, New York, will cease entirely.
- Continental Airlines is going to cut 3,000 jobs as well as retiring 67 planes and reducing flights and capacity; they’ve been busily negotiating with pilots to give them voluntary redundancy packages including health insurance and travel perks.
- Delta Airlines is also joining in with a reduction of 4,000 staff through voluntary severance payouts. In total, they are currently planning to reduce their services within the United States by about 13 per cent. Curiously, Delta is actually planning to increase their international services by the same amount, but that hasn’t saved the jobs of domestic employees.
All of this has put Thanksgiving travel plans in some doubt, as most of the airline cuts will begin immediately after the summer vacation peak. And who knows what further cuts are just waiting in the wings to be announced.
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