American Airlines to lay off nearly 750 employees in Wake County
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- American Airlines said it will be laying off nearly 750 employees in Wake County at the beginning of October.
The layoff -- totaling to 739 workers -- would affect 369 people at RDU Airport and 370 employees in Cary, at a 500 Gregson Drive location, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) documents.
On Wednesday, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom warned that they plan to lay off or furlough 25,000 employees at the beginning of October. The layoffs would include nearly 10,000 flight attendants and 2,500 pilots.
Click here to view the North Carolina WARN summary.
American Airlines pilots could keep their jobs thanks to an agreement between the company and their union. The deal includes early retirement packages for pilots nearing the mandatory retirement age along with a variety of voluntary furlough offers that will maintain benefits like health insurance some other arrangements that would cut hours.
The airline company cited a decrease in air travel since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We hate taking this step, as we know the impact it has on our hardworking team members," Isom and Parker said in a message to their employees. "From the time the CARES Act was signed in March, we had a stated goal of avoiding furloughs because we believed demand for air travel would steadily rebound by Oct. 1 as the impact of COVID-19 dissipated. That unfortunately has not been the case."
