President Trump May Take Executive Action To Avoid Airline Furloughs

The White House Chief of Staff has reportedly reached out to Senate Democrats to restart talks over a new coronavirus package, including a big new airline bailout aimed at avoiding job losses. And as leverage, he says that President Donald Trump “is weighing executive action to avoid massive layoffs” basically giving the cash to airlines himself if Democrats don’t get on board.

The Chief of Staff reports that he’s spoken with United, American and Delta.

If Congress is not going to work, this president is going to get to work and solve some problems. So hopefully, we can help out the airlines and keep some of those employees from being furloughed

Though even in a world where FEMA money is redirected to pay an unemployment supplement for several weeks, and indeed he acknowledges “”[i]t would take a CARES package, I believe, to do it” though sends the further mixed message that “[w]e’re looking at other executive actions. I think everybody, every time they hear that we’re going to do executive actions, they don’t believe me.”

Sara Nelson, who leads the Association of Flight Attendants, criticized the idea of a Trump executive order. She’s supposed to favor anything that helps her flight attendant members, but she also supports Democratic politics (and favored Bernie Sanders over Joe Biden).

There are 9 reasons though that extending airline payroll support is a bad idea.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Sara Nelson sounds like a real loser who puts her personal political beliefs ahead of workers. She is not fit to sweep a floor.

  2. Given that there are currently TWO hurricanes about to hit the United States and he is saying he will redirect FEMA funds to airlines, perhaps Sara Nelson is looking at the greater good, rather than just flight attendants. She is correct that it would be much better to have FEMA keep their funds, and get separate funding passed.

  3. @CSR2.0 — As long as the hurricane doesn’t hit Alabama, Trump won’t care. Well, he actually doesn’t care about anything other than himself. He will go down as BY FAR the worst President in US history.

  4. @Jackson Henderson – Donald Trump sounds like a real loser who puts his personal “brand”, family business (aka repeated bankruptcies), and army of grifters ahead of American citizens. He is not fit to sweep a floor.

  5. I saw a CNBC story that said funding to the airlines would be handled through loans and not grants. Maybe Nelson and the airlines don’t like the idea of even more debt? Airline stocks didn’t react well to the news.

  6. @JacksonHenderson would happily support hsi Dear Leader diverting FEMA funds to support airlines. Jackson Henderson will then complain post the hurricanes “FEMA didnt do anything. Its all a deep state conspiracy against Dear Leader”

  7. It’s sort of amusing how much of an obsession these Biden-opposing guys on VFTW have with Sara Nelson. My bet is that the Biden-opponents’ obsession with Nelson has to do with her being female and — as with their Lord Trump — them having “adulterous eyes”.

  8. As usual Dictator Trump doesn’t believe in negotiation. It has to be only his way. In the meantime states are in financial distress due to Covid. What an idiot.

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