Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) on Friday wrote to the CEOs at six U.S. airlines, asking them to justify the $54 billion Congress gave them last year in light of worker shortages and delayed - or canceled - flights as travel returns to normal.
Cantwell is also the chair of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee.
She wrote to the CEOs of American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, Republic and Allegiant airlines, asking them, in effect: 'What was the money for if there are worker shortages and how do you account for it when it was agreed that the acceptance of such money was contingent on no layoffs?'
Cantwell will certainly get an answer, but she wasn't waiting for one, offering up her own interpretation.
The senator wrote that she is "concerned that, at best," the airlines "poorly managed its marketing of flights and workforce as more people are traveling, and, at worst, it failed to meet the intent of taxpayer funding and prepare for the surge in travel that we are now witnessing."
The senator also requested a staff briefing from each of the airlines by the end of the month.
At the industry's request, Congress created the Payroll Support Program to provide loans to airlines to support the pay and benefits of workers. The three rounds of billions in federal payroll support for the airline industry barred layoffs, involuntary furloughs and pay cuts for employees.
Airlines, however, found a way around that. numerous carriers furloughed employees during lapses in the federal aid. To further cut costs, airlines offered voluntary buyout and early retirement packages and requested that workers take voluntary unpaid or low-paid leaves.
Now, with the majority of Americans vaccinated and the country reopening, leisure flights and bookings are returning to pre-pandemic levels and airlines have begun calling back workers who had been on voluntary leave.
"This reported workforce shortage runs counter to the objective and spirit of the (Payroll Support Program), which was to enable airlines to endure the pandemic and keep employees on payroll so that the industry was positioned to capture a rebound in demand," Cantwell wrote.
CNN reached out to the airlines for comment on the letters. Southwest was the only one to reply, saying it is "staffed for what we're flying and we're flying for what we staffed. ... We're fortunate to be the only major airline to maintain service at every U.S. airport we served prior to the pandemic, and to have utilized Congressional Payroll Support to maintain staffing (continuing a 50-year history of no layoffs, no furloughs) to support both that continual service, and the flight schedule we built for the summer of 2021," the company said.
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