Democratic congressional officials on Sunday asked the Trump administration to speed up the bailout of airlines from Covid-19 to avoid layoffs, according to the New York Times. "We urge you to quickly and fairly conclude direct aid to wages agreements, " demand Democratic officials in a letter sent Sunday to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and quoted by the daily.
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"Aid must not be accompanied by unreasonable conditions which would push an employer to choose bankruptcy" rather than retaining its employees, still warn Nancy Pelosi, Democratic President of the House of Representatives, and Chuck Schumer, leader of the minority Democrat in the Senate, in this letter. They "recognize the need (...) to protect taxpayers' money used to bail out industries" , but stress that "the administration must ensure that companies are committed to protecting workers" , explains the New York Times .
Airlines will have to keep their workforce until the end of September if they accept the aid, the New York Times said. These companies are particularly suffering from the crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, forced to suspend a majority of their activity in a global effort to stop the spread of the virus. Most of the transatlantic flights of American companies have been suspended, and a large part of their domestic routes are stopped.
A special provision is thus provided for this sector in the gigantic economic aid plan of 2.200 billion dollars, adopted by the Congress then ratified by Donald Trump on March 27.
This means that $ 25 billion must be allocated to airlines, $ 4 billion to air cargo companies and $ 3 billion to entrepreneurs to pay wages. In addition, another 25 billion dollars in loans and loan guarantees are planned for airlines and 4 billion dollars for air freight.
In exchange, the federal government could take stakes in these companies, in the form of "warrants", financial securities giving their holder the right to buy or sell an asset at a certain price until a date determined when their show. These securities can thus be converted into shares.
