More than 5,000 jobs at U.S. Airlines were lost in January alone, most at cargo airlines, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
This comes as a direct result of a decrease in consumer spending and overall financial uncertainty that has been impacting the airline sector.
In a recent Wall Street Journal report, it was noted that customer spending on airlines fell by 7.1 percent in the week ending March 8, 2025. The drop coincided with recent comments from airline leaders at the J.P. Morgan 2025 Industrials Conference, where CEOs at both United and Delta talked about future capacity cuts.
At the conference, United reported a downturn in government business, with CEO Scott Kirby saying it was at 50 percent of previous levels. “We’ve seen some bleed-over… into the domestic leisure market,” he said.
Several carriers have cut their financial outlooks for the beginning of 2025 due to poor weather, recent aircraft accidents and less consumer spending affecting revenue. That reduction in spending also coincides with a drop in the number of airline jobs this quarter.
According to the Tuesday report by the USDOT, passenger airlines lost 411 employees in January 2025. Combined with cargo airlines, the U.S. airline industry as a whole lost 5,188 workers for the month.
1,159 total jobs were lost during the same period last year.
In other United news, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary report on Tues., March 18 regarding the United flight 613 incident on Jan. 24, when a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner—flying from Lagos, Nigeria to Washington Dulles— experienced altitude fluctuations over Cote d’Ivoire airspace.
According to the report, the incident began when the aircraft suddenly experienced autopilot disconnection at 36,000 feet, leading to a 12-minute period of altitude changes—with the 787 reaching a maximum altitude of 36,203 feet and dropping as low as 35,577 feet.
Because of what the report indicated were “failures in both the left and right inertial reference units (IRUs),” the flight crew took manual control of the aircraft and returned to Lagos, where injured passengers and crew members were transported to a nearby medical facility.
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