Commercial airlines received more federal pandemic relief than any other single industry affected by COVID-19. Since March of last year, airlines took $54 billion to prevent mass layoffs and weather the storm of COVID-19.
Despite receiving a massive infusion of taxpayer money, major carriers have been roiled with staff shortages and flight cancellations. Many have cut back flight schedules and ended service to certain airports. Ahead of what is expected to be a busy holiday travel season, lawmakers are looking at the disruptions and questioning whether airlines misused COVID relief funds.
According to Politico, members of the House Transportation Committee want to hear from airline executives about why they weren't ready when passengers returned to the skies.
"There should have been every reason, particularly given the bailout money for the airlines, to prepare for the surge we're seeing now," Democrat Eleanor Holmes-Norton, Washington, D.C.'s congressional delegate told Politico. The Transportation Committee does not currently have a hearing scheduled.
The Senate Commerce Committee has been probing the issue since July, after vaccines spurred a sharp increase in travel and a series of flight disruptions. The committee is expected to hear from airlines next month. A committee spokesperson was unable to confirm the date of the hearing.
Lawmakers and the public are frustrated that airlines are struggling to staff flights and recover from routine disruptions that cascade into hundreds or thousands of flight cancellations — as was the case earlier this year with Southwest, American, Frontier and Spirit Airlines. Looking at the multibillion-dollar bailout, many are wondering why it hasn't produced better results.
Airlines for America, the trade group for major U.S. airlines, said the disruptions carriers experienced in recent months were "wholly unrelated to the federal support provided by the Payroll Support Program (PSP)." A spokesperson emphasized that the airlines were grateful for the support that allowed them to maintain workforces and continue service through the lockdowns.
Still, there are concerns that carriers have blamed recent disruptions on too few staff raised eyebrows. Congress provided the money as payroll support, on the condition that airlines retained employees and were prepared to ramp up when travel demand returned. They could not engage in involuntary layoffs, furloughs, pay or benefit cuts; executives' compensation was capped and companies were forbidden from using the funds for stock buybacks.
That reportedly did not stop airlines from encouraging workers to accept buyouts or early retirement, which many did. Over 80,000 airline workers were furloughed or lost their job. According to the latest statistics, the industry is still 24,000 workers short of 2019 levels.
In a letter to airline CEOs in July, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., demanded they account for the staffing issues. "This reported workforce shortage runs counter to the objective and spirit of the PSP, which was to enable airlines to endure the pandemic and keep employees on payroll so that the industry was positioned to capture a rebound in demand," she wrote.
When airlines appear before the Senate, they will likely face questions on how many jobs they saved using federal funds. They may also face scrutiny over decisions to cut back schedules to accommodate fewer crew members. United recently announced it was cutting service to 11 regional hubs. American plans to cut 27 routes beginning next year. At the same time, smaller domestic carriers have seen a resurgence. Allegiant, Spirit, and Frontier had more capacity in October than in 2018, and JetBlue is expanding new routes in the U.S.
In total, Congress authorized three separate bailouts for the passenger airline industry: a $25 billion infusion through the March 2020 CARES Act, $15 billion in the December 2020 relief bill and another $14 billion in 2021 American Rescue Plan. Contractors, who take care of everything from foodservice and janitorial work to maintenance, received $5 billion in total.
Despite ample support, restoring crews and planes after months of downtime does not happen quickly, said Laurie Garrow, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and president of AGIFORS, a nonprofit focused on airline research.
"You can't just move up pilot training. You can't just move up maintenance," she explained. "There are stringent safety guidelines we have to adhere to and those do not happen overnight."
In the initial months of the pandemic, carriers were running as few as 5% of their normal flight schedules. More than half of the U.S. passenger fleet was in storage, which can cost up to $30,000 per plane, plus maintenance. Before airlines could book more flights, many pilots and flight attendants had to recertify. Aircraft had to be reactivated and cleared to fly.
"Clearly, on-time air operation without disruption and the way things were before COVID is the dream and the vision," Garrow noted. "A lot of these tasks take time."
Airlines are also reckoning with a different industry than it was in 2019. Business travel has dropped 50% from pre-pandemic levels The overwhelming majority of flights are leisure passengers, who often schedule at the last minute and can be difficult to predict. International travel is still at a lull, despite the Biden administration lifting COVID travel bans earlier this month.
At the same time, unruly passengers have made flight attendants' jobs more dangerous. Vaccine requirements have led to tense standoffs between airlines and unions. Crews are warning of the dangers of working longer hours to make up for staffing shortages and there are planned strikes by airport workers in San Francisco and Phoenix, as well as flight attendants in Charlotte, N.C.
More recently, airlines have been staffing up and expanding operations ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the two busiest travel holidays of the year. The Transportation Security Administration anticipated it could see 20 million passengers over Thanksgiving, bringing volumes back to pre-pandemic levels. U.S. airlines have said they are prepared to deal with the surge, even with 14% fewer staff than during the peak in 2019.