CHICAGO — United Airlines will eliminate 1,550 flight-attendant jobs as it shrinks operations to stem losses from record fuel bills.
The furloughs cover about 10 percent of Chicago-based United’s attendants and take effect Oct. 31, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said on its website Wednesday. From Sept. 8 to Sept. 22, attendants can volunteer to leave in exchange for company incentives, including keeping most of their benefits.
The move attaches a job-reduction total to a third employee group at UAL, which posted more than $3.3 billion in net losses over the past three quarters. United has said its 7,000 cuts will include 950 pilot jobs and about 1,500 salaried and management positions.
“We encourage everyone who can afford to volunteer for a furlough to please do so, as it will reduce the number of flight attendants who potentially face an involuntary furlough,” Greg Davidowitch, the union president at United, told members in a letter on the website.
The 1,550 positions don’t include 290 of the most senior attendants who accepted buyout offers made in June, airline spokesman Jeff Kovick said.
“As we reduce the size of our fleet and take actions to enable United to compete in an environment of record fuel prices, we must take the difficult and necessary steps to reduce the number of people we have to run our operation,” Kovick said.
United said it has about 15,000 active attendants. The union puts the number at almost 17,000, including those on furlough and leave.
United, the dominant airline at Denver International Airport, is parking 100 jets, more than 20 percent of the 465 being grounded by the largest U.S. carriers, by the end of 2009. The airlines are eliminating almost 26,000 jobs to counter a 60 percent rise in the price of jet fuel, the industry’s largest expense, in the past 12 months.
