United says rising travel demand will spare flight attendants, thousands of others from furlough this fall

United told more than 40,000 employees on Friday that their jobs are safe when federal Covid-19 aid for the sector expires this fall thanks to a rebound in travel demand. The recovery in bookings, led largely by US leisure travelers, has encouraged airlines, including United, American, Delta and Spirit, to set plans to resume hiring pilots. “Given the increase in customer demand and our current outlook for the future, we’re excited to announce that we will not need to furlough flight attendants assigned to active, open Inflight bases again this fall when the current Payroll Support Program (PSP) funding ends on October 1,” wrote John Slater, senior VP of inflight services, to United’s roughly 23,000 flight attendants. “This news provides great relief to many of our flying partners who were facing an uncertain future.” Airport operations workers and customer service agents on Friday received similar memos which said that United “will not furlough” them when the latest round of aid expires. “With vaccination rates continuing to climb across the U.S. as the pace of infections decline, additional countries are reopening to vaccinated visitors,” said United. “Given the current outlook for the future of United, we continue to move closer to full frontline staffing levels to support our operation.”<br/>