Federal Aid Saved U.S. Airlines From the Worst of the Pandemic But Was It a Success?
Photo Credit: U.S. airlines avoid deep cuts and maybe bankruptcies with the $74 billion in Covid-19 relief they have received from the federal government. International Monetary Fund / Cory Hancock/IMF
Skift Take
U.S. airlines avoided broad bankruptcies and cuts with the record $74 billion in government Covid-19 aid. But the relief was industry-specific and left out a lot of other sectors, including hotels and restaurants. That has meant a bumpy national economic recovery.
The aviation industry was one of the single largest beneficiaries from the U.S. government’s $4.5 trillion in Covid-19 pandemic relief. Airlines received $74 billion from three measures, including the Trump administration’s CARES Act to the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan, to shore up their balance sheets but, mostly, to keep staff on their rosters.
On the surface, the relief did what it needed to do. No major airline shut down or filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring, though several small carriers — including Compass Airlines, RavnAir and Trans States Airlines — closed their doors. And the number of people employed by the industry stood at 709,544 at the end of May, down just 6 percent from the month before the pandemic set in, February 2020, according to U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics data. Nearly all of those departures were voluntary.
“I think it's an overwhelming success,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said wh
