03/09/2020
This is a photo of a flight attendant who just found out he will be furloughed as of Oct 1st 2020. With one email, his whole entire life has been turned upside down. This person did not do anything "wrong", he simply works for an industry that is being completely decimated by this pandemic, and there is no end in sight.
Most positions in the airline industry are held by seniority. When it comes to furloughs, the more time you have in the company the "safer" you are, as the junior employees are the ones to go first. The crazy thing is that with furloughs in the airline industry, you could easily have 15+ years in a company and you're considered junior when it comes to being let go.
Yesterday American Airlines announced they would be furloughing 19K employees as of Oct 1st, 8100 of them being flight attendants. United announced they'd be furloughing 15K employees, several thousand of them being flight attendants.
Across the industry, we're all hurting. We may work for different airlines, we may work in different positions but most of us are on edge waiting for the next email to come through. Every time an email hits your inbox you get a little ting of nervousness wondering what bad news might be one click away.
As a fellow CM said earlier, we don't do this job bc we enjoy asking you 10 times what you'd like to drink while you stare at us blankly. We do it because we love interacting with different people, we love to travel, and we love the adventures this job can take us on.
The foreseeable future is going to be rough for many of us. No airline is 100% in the clear as we cannot predict how this pandemic and it's effect on society will pan out.
If you're traveling, please be kind to the airline employees you interact with.
As for all of us in the industry, we may be different airlines but we're all one big family. Be kind to each other. ❤✈❤
-Chelsea
*Edit* My words, not my photo.
*Edit* I found the photographer- Arnold Ramirez II