U.S. Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Sam Graves (R-MO), Chair and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, want to know how airlines managed the Payroll Support Program (SPS) funds and what impact the funds have on airlines’ current operational capabilities.
In a letter from, the Congressmen asked Airlines for American President and CEO Nicholas Calio for clarity on how PSP funds, created by the 2020 CARES Act, as well as subsequent COVID relief packages, were spent. The relief packages required that the funds must be used exclusively to pay employee wages, salaries, and benefits.
“We are aware that, without visibility into the timing of a recovery of passenger demand and taking historical experience into account, a substantial number of workers across the airline industry accepted voluntary separation packages as airlines dramatically reduced capacity and their flight schedules last year to remain solvent…” the Congressmen wrote. “We suspect that the voluntary separations coupled with a faster than anticipated growth in travel volumes may have rendered airlines less resilient when recovering from cascading disruptions and delays due to weather and other variables, like those we saw earlier this fall.”
The members said they expected airlines to take whatever measures were available to address any staffing shortages and address longer-term workforce shortages.
DeFazio and Graves asked that Calio answer how many employees were saved as a result of PSP grants, how many flights and points of service did PSP enable airlines to continue offering, what the approximate percentage of payroll the PSP grants covered, and to what extent did airlines rely on early retirements and voluntary leaves of absence to weather the pandemic. Additionally, the airlines should answer what the primary causes of service disruption this summer were, whether or not airlines are suffering from workforce shortages, and what the airlines need to update their workforce.
The Congressmen asked the organization to respond by close of business on Dec. 6.