United Airlines Imposing Unpaid Time Off, Planning For Huge Layoffs With No Severance - View from the Wing

United Airlines is being given billions in subsidies for employee pay on the condition that no employee is furloughed or has their rate of pay reduced.

Already they figured out they could use a CARES Act loophole to reduce full-time employees down to part time. That reduces hours worked, not pay rates. That way there's more money left over to run the airline and protect shareholders from taking a haircut in bankruptcy.

Now today the airline announced more changes aimed at cutting employee pay without cutting pay rates. They are going to require unpaid vacation days for management and administation employees. This takes a page out of JetBlue's play book.

JonNYC reports:

"We will be implementing an unpaid time off program for domestic M&A employees to align with less flying, fewer customers, and less working time for frontline employees. Effective between May16 and September30, domestic M&A employees will be required to take 20 unpaid days off...

- JonNYC (@xJonNYC) May 4, 2020

... For non-operational M&A employees, a four-day work week will be implemented with Fridays being the assumed day off. Employees whose work doesn't allow for a day off every Friday should work with their managers to schedule a different day each week. "

- JonNYC (@xJonNYC) May 4, 2020

JonNYC, whose sources run deep beyond his usual American Airlines leaks, also flags that United rewrote their severance policy so that the management and administrative employees they let go on October 1 (when CARES Act restrictions lift) will receive no severance. That's huge because the airline plans to notify "at least" 30% of this workforce by mid-July that they're going to be furloughed October 1.