Alaska Airlines offering flight attendant incentives to combat staffing shortages

Alaska Airlines is offering pay incentives to flight attendants to combat the COVID-related staffing challenges amid another busy travel season. 

"Like many other airlines, we are facing general staffing challenges," Alaska Airlines told FOX Business in a statement. "In response, we’re offering flight attendants pay incentives to fill gaps in staffing for a short period of time this spring." 

The carrier declined to elaborate on how much extra flight attendants were being compensated.  

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Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
ALK	ALASKA AIR GROUP INC.	53.16	+0.56	+1.06%

Major U.S. airlines were losing an incredible number of staff members amid the surge in omicron cases, which happened to coincide with the bustling holiday travel season. This, on top of significant weather challenges this winter, forced many U.S. passenger carriers to cancel or delay thousands of flights. 

In January, Shane Tackett, the chief financial officer of Alaska Airlines parent company, Alaska Air Group, told investors during an earnings call that in order to "move from 80% to 85% of pre-COVID flying to 100% and then beyond, we must staff up early, given the throughput capacity of our hiring and training infrastructure." 

Ahead of the spring and summer seasons, which is typically another busy time for the travel industry, Alaska Airlines said it hired 165 new flight attendants. 

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The carrier also said its "on-track" to bring more than 700 more employees on by June as it tries to bring its capacity back to 2019 levels. 

However, travelers have already started flooding airports across the nation, especially with spring break season in full swing. 

On Monday, over 2.1 million passengers were screened at security checkpoints nationwide, according to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spokesperson Lisa Farbstein. 

That marked the fifth consecutive day in which more than two million people passed through security checkpoints, Farbstein said. 

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Earlier this month, the TSA projected that "average daily passenger throughput will surpass 90% of pre-pandemic levels for the duration of March."