News of the Republic furloughs began to make their way on to social media in the past few hours. Effective today, it appears as though Republic Airways has furloughed pilot classes currently in training including class: February 18th, 2020; February 25th, 2020; March 3rd, 2020 and March 10th, 2020.
Additionally around 300 or so non-crew staff positions were furloughed, including 30 dispatchers.
Some employee postings on social media cite that Republic was ineligible to accept the Government funding through the C.A.R.E.S. act due to the company’s restructuring a few years back. In a video posted to employees, Matt Koscal, Republic’s Chief Administrative Officer, basically explains that the company’s corporate governance after bankruptcy restricts the types of aid, loans or grants the airline can receive, and further, goes on to explain that because of “strings” that may be tied to the to the loan/grant money they may be ineligible to access it.
In the documents we obtained last month, most of the strings were tied to the inability to furlough employees and wage caps on Executives. The funding also limited schedule reductions ensuring that smaller cities kept air service, a decision Republic’s larger mainline partners would have to make, not Republic.
Republic Airways, based in Indianapolis, operates a fleet of 200 Embraer 170/175 aircraft and offers scheduled passenger service with more than 1,000 daily flights to 100 cities in 40 U.S. states, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America. The airline provides fixed-fee flights operated under its major airline partner brands of American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express.