Airlines Shedding Growing Number of Jobs

Thanks to the struggling economy and its devastating effects on the profitability of airlines, more and more airlines have been reporting a significant number of jobs cuts going forward. Among these, American Airlines will let go of 1,600 jobs, Cessna will let go 1,300 employees, and Delta seems prepared to drop an unspecified number of workers.

These job cuts come as slowing travel demand leads to dramatic drops in profit, creating the need for a reduction in overhead costs to come up even. Already, fares are being reduced in an effort to attract more potential travelers to fly, but so far these efforts have been less than successful.

Because of the amount of workers laid off, these airlines will also be forced to offer less available seats. Delta will now have about 4 percent less available seats after the cuts, which brings it to a 10 percent drop in seating capacity since a year ago. For American Airlines, these numbers sit at 1 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively.

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