Airlines see largest employment drop in five years
The Business Review (Albany)

Full-time employment at Frontier Airlines declined 15.7 percent between December 2007 and the same month on 2008, the steepest drop of 14 large and low-cost airlines, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The overall full-time employment decrease of seven low-cost airlines over that period was 3.3 percent, the BTS said in its monthly “Passenger Airline Employment Data.”
For seven larger, “network” airlines, the decrease was 6.3 percent.

Southwest Airlines, the largest carrier at Albany International Airport, had 35,499 full-time quivalent employees at the end of 2008, putting it in the top of the seven low-cost carriers on the BTS list.

BTS counted two part-time employees as a single full-time worker.

Among seven “network” airlines, United saw the biggest employee reduction, 12.7 percent, between the two Decembers, BTS said, followed by Northwest Airlines (6.9 percent) and Delta Air Lines (6.2 percent). Northwest and Delta (NYSE: DAL) are combining operations. Both serve Albany International Airport.

Overall — among large, low-cost and smaller regional airlines — employment levels experienced their largest year-to-year decrease since December 2003, BTS said.

Employment levels dropped 6.7 percent in December 2008 compared to the same month in 2007, the sixth straight decline in full-time equivalent rates compared to the same month the previous year.