Virgin America (San Francisco) has announced that it will close its cabin crew base at New York JFK, effective November 1, 2017. Affected cabin crew will be relocated to San Francisco or Los Angeles International by the end of the year and will be offered transition packages to help them in their moves. Pilots will not be affected by the closure.
"Currently, the JFK InFlight base does not make sense for the Company's cost and route structure," Virgin said in a FAQ to staff. "Closing the JFK InFlight base will allow us to recoup the next five years' worth of continued anticipated losses from this base as well as the costs associated with the closure itself."
The statement added that the carrier is keen to close the base before it begins operating under a Single Operator's Certificate (SOC) with Alaska Airlines (AS, Seattle Tacoma International), which purchased the company late last year. Alaska plans to bring the two carriers under an SOC by early 2018.
The thirty-eight affected cabin crew will not be offered redundancy packages as the company is "in [a] period of growth and need[s] all hands on deck".
