United, Spirit offers higher pay to board staff in January by Reuters

By the hand of Abhijith Ganapavaram

(Reuters) – United Airlines and Spirit Airlines (NYSE 🙂 Inc. is raising the salary of ship’s crews while struggling to keep their schedules intact as a result of massive one-week layoffs by U.S. airlines.

While Spirit flight attendants receive double pay for any work until Jan. 4, according to the union, United is offering three times as much time as pilots receiving additional trips during January, according to an internal note seen by Reuters.

It has been hampered by flights that have delayed or canceled the holiday, which has caused chaos as sick staff at most U.S. airports and fears of hiring COVID-19 grow. Along with the opportunity to deal with bad passengers, many pilots and cabin crew refuse the incentives of overtime.

This doubt, coupled with bad weather and tight staff, has resulted in more than 8,000 flights being canceled in the last eight days, according to FlightAware.com, a flight tracking website.

“All flight attendants, no matter how you get your partner, will receive a 200% paycheck for any couple they touch from December 28 to January 4,” the Association of Aircraft Assistants-CWA said in a statement. The union represents about 4,000 flight attendants of Spirit Airlines, according to the carrier’s latest annual document.

Earlier this year, Spirit Airlines in Florida had to cancel nearly 3,000 flights due to bad weather and poor staff.

JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ 🙂 Corp. said in a customer statement on Thursday that 75% of its crew is in the northeastern United States, a region hard hit by COVID-19 infections. The carrier has already reduced its schedule to January 13 with around 1,280 flights.

Alaska Air (NYSE 🙂 Group Inc said that while the pandemic affected its operations, most of the cancellations and delays were due to bad weather.

Last week the airline agreed to offer some benefits, such as the introduction of wage protections on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, the AFA said.

Hawaiian Airlines said it did not offer any new incentives to its crew to work on vacation.

SkyWest (NASDAQ 🙂 Airlines said its operations are affected by the weather and the Omicron variant, which is spreading rapidly and causing cases that have broken records in the United States.

CNBC first reported on United’s salary plans.