'Not a lot of options' for employees as airlines continue to struggle

TAMPA, Fla. - Concerns over COVID-19 have led to canceled trips, fewer flights, and now, airline workers' jobs are on the line. United Airlines announced that 36,000 of its employees could be laid off in the fall, nearly half of its U.S. staff. 

When coronavirus hit the U.S., air travelers had mixed feelings. "I can't explain how nervous I am," one passenger told FOX 13 back in March.

"I'm not concerned because I'm pretty healthy," another passenger said at the time. As feelings grew more concerned, they translated to plummeting passenger traffic.  

Trey Jones, a St. Pete man who recently left his flight attendant job, saw things change by the day.

"Once it started, I could tell it was going to be a big deal," Jones said. "They were trying to spread us out, they were limiting the amount of passengers we had, they were limiting our service immediately."

At Tampa International Airport, March's passenger numbers dropped more than 46 percent compared to the previous year. April was down more than 95 percent year-to-year. May saw an 87 percent decrease, compared for May 2019. June's numbers steadily climbed.

Nationwide, the 4th of July weekend brought the highest amount of air travel since mid-March. However, it was still down about 70 percent from a year ago. According to the TSA, which reports checkpoint travel numbers, July is seeing around 600,000 to 700,000 travelers each day compared to more than 2 million a day last year.

With ticket sales dragging nationwide, United Airlines announced Wednesday it's sending notices to 36,000 employees who could be furloughed. That includes 15,000 flight attendants, 11,000 customer service and gate agents, 5,500 maintenance workers and more than 2,200 pilots. United hopes to limit those numbers by offering early retirement benefits. 

"The biggest questions are, when will people start flying again? How many will fly?" Southwest's CEO Gary Kelly pondered back in April.

Southwest and American Airlines previously predicted they'll be operating smaller airlines by fall without drastic improvement. Delta said it's sending layoff warnings to more than 2,500 pilots.

"I'm definitely nervous for all these, people for sure," Jones said.

Jones, who has an auto-immune disease, not only left the airline industry for health concerns, he feared this was coming.  

"A lot of us that do come from the hospitality industry, it's hard," Jones said. "What are we going to do, go back to Six Flags or go back to Disney in California or go back to Universal here? There's not a lot of options because they're just as hurt right now."

Sara Nelson, president of The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) said in a statement, "This crisis dwarfs all others in aviation history and there's no end in sight. Demand was just barely climbing back to 20 percent of last year and even those minimal gains evaporated over the last week due to surging COVID-19 cases across the country. The United Airlines projected furlough numbers are a gut punch, but they are also the most honest assessment we've seen on the state of the industry."

United can not lay off workers until October, as a condition of the $5-billion they received through the CARES Act Payroll Support Program. The AFA-CWA and other unions are fighting for Congress to extend the program through March, "to avoid hundreds of thousands of layoffs," according to Nelson.