White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows met with major airline chief executives yesterday as the industry braces for thousands of job cuts in two weeks, and urged lawmakers to embrace a $1.5 trillion coronavirus aid package proposed by a bipartisan congressional group and endorsed by President Donald Trump, Reuters reported. Meadows told reporters “if (House) Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi was willing to move a bill to keep people from being laid off in the airline industry that’s stand-alone, that the president would certainly support it.” But congressional aides say that it is unlikely that Congress would agree to a stand-alone bill to assist airlines when so many other sectors are struggling and seeking assistance. “The needs have only grown. Some of the needs for the small businesses, needs for restaurants, needs for transportation and the rest,” Pelosi said yesterday. Other transportation sectors are also seeking billions of dollars in new bailout funds, including public transit, bus companies and the Amtrak passenger rail service. Meadows said that the administration had examined executive action options, all of them less than ideal. Airlines did not offer a new proposal but again made the case that helping avert airline job cuts was one good reason to pass a broad coronavirus relief bill.
