HARLOW: Welcome back. Well, unfortunately, today, it looks like it will be the worst day of job losses in the history of aviation. Between United and American alone, 32,000 jobs could be gone as of today as Congress has failed to reach a new aid deal. Delta CEO Ed Bastian joins us exclusively this morning. Good morning, Ed.</s>ED BASTIAN, CEO, DELTA AIR LINES: Good morning, Poppy. Good to be with you.</s>HARLOW: Good to have you. I know that as of today, you are able to avoid any furloughs or layoffs, but I wonder how long that can last if you don't get more money from Congress.</s>BASTIAN: Well, we are facing an issue with respect to about 1,900 pilots. We have figured out for all of our other groups through efforts they have made to take unpaid leaves of absence, thousands and tens of thousands throughout the summer, early retirement opportunities, we've been able to avoid furloughs in all of our other work groups through the end of the year and well into next year as well. I'm confident of that. But with our pilots, we're still working on a strategy to be able to hopefully get to that same outcome. But if we can't, certainly, the assistance from Congress would be helpful in avoid is those furloughs as well.</s>HARLOW: So, Congress getting a new deal together could save 1,900 pilot jobs at Delta?</s>BASTIAN: Absolutely.</s>HARLOW: Okay. So, a question a lot of people have and I certainly have is when and if you ever get back to normal, you've still got passenger loads at only about 30 percent, and some are asking does injecting taxpayer money into the airlines right now make sense, or is it delaying the inevitable? What do you say to them?</s>BASTIAN: Well, the industry, first and foremost, is an essential industry to our economy, to our nation, and we've had our people out working throughout.
American, United to Cut 32,000 Jobs as Federal Aid Expires.