Lawmakers Ask for Probe of Airlines’ Use of COVID-19 Funds

Joseph LordSeptember 9, 2022

Lawmakers in Congress are asking for a probe into the ways that airlines used COVID-19 relief funding amid an industry-wide pilot shortage.

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines received around $54 billion in funds from Congress to help continue to pay their employees at a time when travelers were scarce. The payments continued for 18 months, ending in September 2021, and required several conditions from airlines, including a prohibition on firing or furloughing employees, limits on compensation to executives, and a ban on stock buybacks and dividends.

Now, lawmakers are requesting a Treasury Department probe into whether the funding was used to fund early retirements and to buy out pilots’ contracts, and how such buyouts fueled current pilot shortages.

Even though airlines now have more pilots and run fewer flights than they did at the start of the pandemic, the industry has faced higher absentee rates due to pilots infected with COVID-19 being unable to work.

“We are concerned that some airlines have used federal funds obtained during the pandemic to provide buyouts and early retirement packages for pilots, which may be exacerbating a shortage of commercial pilots,” House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Coronavirus Crisis Committee Chairman James Clyburn (D-S.C.) wrote in a Sept. 8 letter to the Treasury Department’s inspector general (pdf). “As a result of pilot shortages, thousands of flights have been delayed or canceled, wreaking havoc on travel plans for millions of American taxpayers.

“The Treasury Department allocated more than $60 billion of taxpayer funds to commercial airlines through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Under the CARES Act Payroll Support Program, Congress intended the funding allocated to airlines to ‘preserve aviation jobs and compensate air carrier industry workers.’