United Airlines offers its pilots triple salary to stop flight cancellations caused by COVID-19

Leslie Josephs -

United Airlines is offering its pilots to triple their salary for most of January, in order to alleviate the staff shortage caused by the rapid spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19.

United, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, SkyWest, Alaska Airlines and other airlines have canceled more than 10,000 combined flights since Dec. 23, citing a combination of bad weather and an increase in sick calls from crews testing positive. by coronavirus.

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The outages come during what airline executives forecast as the busiest days since the pandemic began.

On Friday, airlines canceled nearly 1,500 flights in the US, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.

United canceled more than 200, about 11% of its flight schedule.

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United and the pilots union, the Airline Pilots Association, have reached an agreement to be paid more to cover open travel, Bryan Quigley, United's senior vice president of flight operations, said in a note on Friday. of the staff, which was seen by our sister network CNBC.

Pilots will be offered three and a half times their salary for flying open trips between December 30 and January 3 and triple for trips between January 4 and 29, according to the note.

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"Due to the rapid spread of the omicron variant, we are seeing record levels of sick calls from pilots," the pilots union wrote to its members.

"The impact on the operation is clear and United has experienced a correspondingly large number of cancellations in the last week."

United flight attendants are also getting extra pay, and other airlines, including JetBlue, American, Southwest and Spirit, have also increased crew pay to avoid flight disruptions on vacation.

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