‘I worry what’s going to happen’: how Covid has made airline work risky and exhausting in the US

As flight attendants are forced to manage disruptive passengers, other workers in the industry get by with no health insurance or sick leave

From mass furloughs, voluntary job losses and retirements, to understaffing problems and a surge in cases of harassment and assaults by unruly passengers, workers at airports and airlines continue to bear the brunt of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the air travel industry.

The sector was among the hardest hit by Covid-19, losing about 100,000 jobs in the first few months of the pandemic. Through three rounds of funding, Congress provided the industry with $54bn in federal assistance to keep workers on payrolls, while surges in the Delta variant have stifled air travel recovery domestically and internationally.