American Airlines received a little over $3 billion from the federal government as part of ‘Payroll Support 2’ the second round of government airline bailouts. In exchange they have to pay all of their employees for December 2020 through March 2021 who can’t be construed to have left the company voluntarily.

According to the company for the first quarter that means an extra payroll cost of $300 million, so about $400 million for the four month period. They keep the rest of the money.

Effective April 1 they’re allowed to furlough workers again, and they’ve warned they may do this, though they’re asking for a third government bailout.

Most furloughed employees will not actually work during the payroll support period. About a third of flight attendants are being brought back in for March, but may be furloughed again in April.

In order to let workers go en masse they’re required to provide 60 days’ advance notice under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988. (Some states have their own WARN Acts to comply with as well.)

American hasn’t sent out these notices yet, so they’re continuing to bring workers back. An additional 1000 flight attendants – still not half the total furloughed – are being told to come back in April.

Important recall information from American Airlines Flight Service:

We’re excited to announce that we’re moving forward to recall the next 1,000 Flight Attendants. We expect your return-to-flying date to be April 1, 2021. Your next step to return to flying status is to complete your fingerprinting at the location where you returned your company property.

You can set up your fingerprinting appointment by accessing the Fingerprinting Portal. After you’ve registered for your appointment, you’ll receive a confirmation email and details on next steps including collection of your company property. If you require training, the Training Support team will be in contact with you for scheduling.

We’ve created a dedicated Returning to American space on Jetnet for team members in all work groups. Once logged in, click on the link for Flight Service team members. There you’ll find more information, including answers to frequently ask questions. If you don’t find the information you’re looking for, you can email the team at [redacted]@aa.com.

We’re thrilled to welcome you back!

Flight Service Administration

It’s possible that these flight attendants could return to flying April 1 – only to be furloughed literally days later, if WARN Act notices are sent in the coming days and followed through on, since Payroll Support employment requirements will no longer be in effect come April and American has said they have more employees on payroll than they need to operate flights for which they have customer demand.

Hopefully, for the sake of these cabin crew members, American will decide to spend more than 13% of their latest payroll bailout actually paying furloughed employees – as Southwest Airlines has done, committing to no furloughs in 2021.