Airlines see largest employment drop in five years

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, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported Wednesday.

The overall full-time employment decrease of seven low-cost airlines over that period, including Denver-based Frontier, 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.

Frontier had 4,397 full-time equivalent employees at the end of 2008, putting it in the middle of the seven low-cost carriers on the BTS list. Southwest Airlines (NSYE: LUV) was tops with 35,499 workers; Virgin America had the fewest, 1,259.

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

Frontier is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Virgin America had the greatest increase of employees — 71.3 percent — between December 2007 and December 2008 of the seven low-cost airlines, followed by Allegiant (14.2 percent). AirTran was the only low-cost airline besides Frontier with a loss of employees (9.1 percent).

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.

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.

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