United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) has sent warnings of possible layoffs to 36,000 employees, more than a third of its workforce, with the final decision about their future employment due early next month, Business Insider has reported.
According to slides from a town hall meeting with employees filed by the airline, United is planning to send all Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notices to affected staff by mid-July. The changes would become effective from October 1, 2020, the day after the expiration of job protections under the terms of the federal CARES Act support.
The layoffs could affect 15,000 flight attendants, 11,000 customer-service and gate agents, 5,500 maintenance workers, and 2,250 pilots, among others. United's total workforce currently numbers around 98,000 persons.
The WARN Act obliges companies to give workers a 60-day notification about any planned layoffs, in most cases. United underlined that the issuance of a WARN notice to an employee does not necessarily mean that he or she will be laid off but only that their job "may be affected through involuntary furlough".
In a separate development, India's newswire ANI has reported that United Airlines has filed a request with the Ministry of Civil Aviation to restart scheduled flights to Mumbai International and Delhi International. Currently, India's ban on all international services is valid through the end of July, although Air India (AI, Delhi International) is allowed to operate repatriation flights, including to the United States. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) recently alleged that Air India has effectively been carrying revenue passengers on repatriation charter flights, thus creating market imbalance against US airlines.
United has, for now, been allowed to operate three repatriation charters on the New York Newark-Delhi route in July, although passengers will only be carried from India to the United States.
