Southwest and American Airlines Announce Employee Bonuses After Tax Reform Passage

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Tom Ciccotta

Southwest and American Airlines separately announced on Tuesday that they would be rewarding their employees with a $1,000 bonus as a result of the passage of the GOP tax bill.

Both Southwest and American Airlines announced bonuses for their employees on Tuesday in response to the passage of the GOP tax bill. Southwest announced that all employees who were with the company as of December 31, 2017, will receive a $1,000 bonus on January 8, 2018. The American Airlines bonuses will total approximately $130 million.

“We applaud Congress and the president for taking this action to pass legislation, which will result in meaningful corporate income tax reform for the transportation sector in general, and for Southwest Airlines, in particular,” Southwest’s CEO Gary Kelly said in a statement. “We are excited about the savings and additional capital, which we intend to put to work in several forms — to reward our hard-working employees, to reinvest in our business, to reward our shareholders, and to keep our costs and fares low for our customers.”

In addition to the bonuses, which will be given to all full-time and part-time employees, Southwest announced that they will be donating $5 million to charity as a result of the tax reform bill.

“Recent tax reform has received much publicity. While the company does not yet pay cash taxes due to our enormous losses in the past, there is no doubt that our country‘s new tax structure will have positive long-term benefits for American,” American Airlines wrote in a statement to its employees. “We will be able to invest even more in aircraft and facilities and we will be able to do so with even greater confidence about the future. As we analyze those potential future benefits, our leadership team, backed by our Board of Directors considered how a portion of that positive impact might be directly shared with the very people who produce the profits at American – all of you.”

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