US: Senate panel invites airline CEOs to testify at Dec. 8 hearing

The chair of the US Senate Commerce Committee, concerned about worker shortages at airlines that received billions of dollars in government assistance, has invited CEOs of seven major US carriers to testify at a Dec. 8 hearing, airlines and a committee official said. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat who chairs the panel, is inviting the CEs of American Airlines, Delta, Southwest, United, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and Spirit to testify, the official added. The airlines declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Starting in March 2020, Congress approved three separate rounds of taxpayer bailouts totaling $54b to cover much of US airlines' payroll costs through Sept. 30 as a result of COVID-19. The heavy US Thanksgiving travel week would not have been possible without the government payroll assistance program and union-negotiated incentives, Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, representing workers at 17 airlines, said Tuesday. "We made sure aviation workers were in place to meet the return demand for air travel after access to vaccination," Nelson added. Last month, Nelsonnoted that the airline industry "created a COVID-19 relief plan that no other industry got." Airlines that received government assistance were not allowed to issue involuntary layoffs or cut worker pay. They also had to limit executive compensation and halt share buybacks and dividend payments. Staffing shortages in recent months have prompted some airlines to cancel hundreds of flights at times even as they worked to boost staffing.<br/>