American Airlines to lay off hundreds of employees

In continuing with the cutbacks in its workforce previous planned for this fall, American Airlines has sent notices to 469 employees, working at five different airports in the U.S. that they may lose their jobs on November 1.

The hardest hit segment would be employees at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, the second-largest of American’s hubs, where 353 workers received lay-off notices. Another 53 employees have been notified, who work at the Los Angeles airport, 28 at San Francisco, 27 at the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., airport, and eight at Columbus, Ohio.

Late last week the airline sent a letter to the international vice president of the Transport Workers Union, Dennis L. Burchette, to inform him that 379 members of the TWU, mostly fleet service staff, could be laid off.

“It is quite clear that we can no longer operate our airline at its current levels,” commented American’s vice president for employee relations, Mark Burdette.

“This reality has forced us to make some very tough, but immediate, decisions to secure American’s future. We must quickly reduce our operating schedule for the coming months, and as a result, will need fewer people to operate the airline,” Burdette added.

The Fort Worth-based airline released a statement several months ago regarding its intention to reduce capacity by as much as eight percent, which included cuts on domestic routes of as much as 11 to 12 percent.

On Wednesday, the carrier began the implementation of the first round of capacity reductions as both American and its partner, American Eagle, slashed flights at the San Juan, Puerto Rico, airport, among others, and discontinued service to Oakland, California and Barranquilla in Colombia.

Larger cuts will come in early November when American and American Eagle will reduce the number of flights they operate system-wide.

www.aa.com