UAL Seeks 600 Flight Attendant Cuts
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By Darren Shannon
United Airlines is asking for a further 600 furloughs from its flight attendant ranks, and has warned it will impose the cuts if it does not attain sufficient volunteers.
This latest round of furloughs is in addition to 1,550 voluntary furloughs from last year.
With this new set of furloughs about 16% of the carrier’s 13,500 mainline flight attendants will be furloughed for between 10 months to 30 months, in line with previously announced capacity cuts, according to the airline.
“The continued challenging economic environment, combined with significantly lower flight attendant attrition, has resulted in United taking the difficult, but necessary step to reduce the number of flight attendants in our operation,” said the carrier in a statement.
“We will again offer our flight attendants a voluntary package, and hope to receive enough responses to prevent any involuntary furloughs,” it added.
Because this is a new set of furloughs, last year’s 1,550 volunteers — some of which have already returned to work — will effectively be revoked and a new round of 2,150 voluntary furloughs initiated.
All 2,150 furloughs will be effective Aug. 31. The deadline for volunteers is July 27.
Photo: Airbus
