Company Says It Made A Mistake In Offering Voluntary Leave Options To Hundreds Of Pilots

American Airlines has offered an apology to hundreds of pilots after it mistakenly offered voluntary leave options to hundreds of pilots as a cost-cutting measure as capacity has been slashed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

CNBC reports that in an email from Kimball Stone, American’s senior vice president of flight operations, the pilots were told that the airline had "either by miscalculation or miscommunication wrongly indicated” that at least 1,200 pilots who fly the carrier's narrow-body Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 airplanes could take short-term leave. “The proffer for short term leaves ... ended yesterday (Tueday) morning, and as we began the award process we discovered that we could offer nowhere near that number of leaves based upon the current April schedule. In fact, Manpower Planning did not believe we would be able to accommodate any A320 or B737 leaves for the month of April.”

About two-thirds of American's pilots fly the narrow-body airplanes, according to its pilot union.

In his email, Stone said "To those who are willing to sacrifice with shorter term leaves that have yet to materialize, I also want to extend my apologies. I know the delay and the change in expectations breaches the trust that our Flight Department has so carefully attempted to build over the past few years. We will do what we can to make it right.”

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report