Originally Posted by
Itsajob
The grant money wasn’t designed to cover all payroll expenses. The new measure in the industry is cash burn. The company burning the least amount of cash will have a better chance of survival. The flip side of this letter is that if the airlines are prevented from lowering labor cost until October, the cuts in October could be even more extreme in an attempt to recover that money. This could turn out to be a case of be careful what you wish for, especially for ground operations. They could be furloughed very deep being that it takes far less time, training, and expense to bring them back than an employee group like pilots.
Precisely! And that's why many offered COLAs, RFLs, early retirements, etc. Those actions as well as other reductions should be able to cover the difference. And is it unreasonable to expect that a company shouldn't have some of their own money available to cover unforseen circumstances? Additionally, the way I read the legislation, even though the money doled out was only a percentage of what was asked for, the ask was based on historical payroll and not the actual payroll that was adjusted/reduced after all of the voluntary cost cutting.