Coronavirus hitting the airline industry hard

PORT ORCHARD, WASH – Right now, the only people who are receiving steady paychecks are the “essential workers, whose trade was deemed necessary by the government. Surprisingly, that includes the airline industry.

That doesn’t mean they have gone unaffected.

“There’s no way that we can even run a business with the [number] of employees that we have versus the amount of departures,” said flight attendant LeAnne Canton. “We have too many employees basically for what we’re flying right now.”

Airports are emptier than they have been since 9/11 right now because of the novel coronavirus pandemic that has plagued the world. Right now, only essential flying is allowed, which could mean troubling times for the airlines.

“It’s affecting all of us,” Canton said. “All airlines will be different when they come back…hopefully we’ll get back there, but this is, I think, shocking…we’ve never had anything like this happen to our economy.”

It’s affecting future aviators as well. Central Washington University has the only aviation major option in the state, and right now, they are at a halt.

“I still have about seven-hundred hours left until I can get my air transportation pilot license,” CWU aviation school student Cooper Canton said. “The whole program here at central is shut down…no one is flying.”

The air transportation pilot license is the last thing on the list for Canton to be able to finally start searching for a job in the industry.

“I’ve heard Compass Airlines has already gone bankrupt…so it could potentially wipe out a lot of airlines,” Canton said. “A lot of young pilots are probably going to get laid off because they don’t have enough money to keep them…so we will see what the future looks like.”

COVID-19 has left the world with many questions, the airline industry and its uncertainty is just one small piece in the grand scheme.