USAir Will Lay Off 3,585 Workers, Cut Back Flights
USAir will respond to huge losses by laying off 3,585 employees, or 7%, of its payroll in coming months, closing flight-crew bases in San Diego and three other cities and eliminating an aircraft maintenance facility in Los Angeles.
The airline won’t know how many of its 6,000 California employees will lose jobs for several months, spokesman Larry Pickett said Monday.
The San Diego flight-crew base is home to 120 pilots and 274 flight attendants, most of whom were with Pacific Southwest Airlines when USAir acquired San Diego-based PSA in 1986.
Arlington, Va.-based USAir recently reported a 1990 loss of $454 million on revenue of $6.6 billion. It hopes to cut costs by eliminating unprofitable routes, closing facilities and furloughing employees.
The airline previously announced that it is reducing daily departures from California airports by 97 to 192 on May 2. Nationwide, the total number of USAir’s daily departures on May 2 will be reduced to 2,626 from 2,894.
In line with the flight cuts on May 2, USAir will furlough 660 pilots, 540 flight attendants, 505 maintenance and utility employees, 1,300 customer service agents, 305 reservations agents and 275 managers and staff. The layoffs are in addition to 3,600 furloughs that occurred last August.
The California service cuts represent a dramatic retrenchment for USAir, which has been hit hard by bruising West Coast fare wars and high fuel costs since acquiring PSA and Piedmont airlines during the late 1980s.
Monday’s furloughs will hit hardest in the four cities where USAir will close flight-crew bases: San Diego, Miami, Greensboro, N.C., and Syracuse, N.Y. Eight bases will remain open.
“It comes as a shock to everyone,” said Carol Austin, president of the USAir branch of the Assn. of Flight Attendants, which represents about 9,400 USAir employees. “It will be devastating to the 274 flight attendants and their families” in San Diego, said Austin, a San Diego resident and a former PSA flight attendant.
The furloughs will create a “domino effect” throughout USAir’s system as senior employees in San Diego seek transfers to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Similar transfers will occur as USAir closes its flight bases in Miami, Greensboro and Syracuse, Austin said.
Some of USAir’s 675 Los Angeles-based flight attendants will be forced to seek transfers as they are “bumped” by senior personnel from San Diego. Similarly, the furloughs are expected to force USAir employees in San Francisco to seek transfers back East.
USAir employees, who learned of the furloughs early Monday, are already describing the day as “Black Monday,” said USAir Captain John Feldvary, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Assn., which represents 6,200 USAir pilots.
USAir President Seth E. Schofield, in a prepared release, linked the cutbacks to the ongoing recession, slumping traffic and “sharply higher operating costs, particularly in the price of jet fuel.” Schofield said the restructuring would leave USAir “in a position to rebuild for the future.
“It looks as if we’ll be going down to about 5,600 pilots,” said Feldvary, a relatively new pilot with USAir who probably will return to a co-pilot’s seat. Senior USAir pilots who are furloughed in California “would most likely have to head east, maybe to Pittsburgh, Boston or Charlotte,” he said.
