Air Wisconsin (ZW, Appleton Outgamie County Regional) is planning to furlough up to 503 employees from its offices in Milwaukee and Appleton as it shifts to charter and Essential Air Service (EAS) markets and ends its capacity purchase agreement with American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth).
The furloughs would most likely begin as soon as March 31, 2025. Air Wisconsin said in a statement to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development that “the reductions are expected to be temporary for our unionised employees and permanent for management/salaried employees.” It plans to lay off 219 management and salaried employees and 294 unionised workers.
Since the announcement of its business shift, “the company has been working to develop alternative flying opportunities, which it expects to announce in the coming weeks,” it explained in the statement. It added that it was unable to assess the ultimate extent of the company-wide layoffs at this point.
As of December 31, 2023, Air Wisconsin had 1,008 full-time employees and sixty-one part-time employees, making a total of 1,069 employees of whom 779 were unionised. The carrier had 386 pilots (represented by the Air Line Pilots Association - ALPA) and 196 cabin crew (represented by the Association of Flight Attendants - AFA), alongside other professional groups.
ch-aviation has reached out to Air Wisconsin for comment.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows the regional carrier currently operates a fleet of sixty-three CRJ200s. The final flight on behalf of American Airlines under the American Eagle brand will take place on April 3.
