Wheels Up Layoffs Announced

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Wheels Up, the country’s third largest operator in charter hours, has announced it’s laying off an unspecified number of non-operational employees to trim $30 million worth of salaries and benefits from its payroll. Despite its meteoritic growth, Wheels Up hasn’t yet been profitable even though revenues are expected to be in the $1.5 billion range this year. Privatejetcardcomparisons.com is reporting that the layoffs are part of the plan to get to profitability by 2024.

“The plan is intended to streamline the company’s organization and reduce headcount in areas of the business that do not directly impact the company’s operations or its customers’ experience. Excluded from these actions were key operationally focused employee groups such as pilots, maintenance, and operations-support personnel,” the company said in an 8-k filing. The company told the website there will be no changes to its more than 12,000 membership agreements and it still plans to build an operations center in Atlanta.

Russ Niles
Russ Niles is Editor-in-Chief of AVweb. He has been a pilot for 30 years and joined AVweb 22 years ago. He and his wife Marni live in southern British Columbia where they also operate a small winery.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Fred: “That’s a staggering amount of revenue for a business to take in and still be unprofitable.”

    Barney: “Hey Fred!Have you heard about these autonomous e-multicopter air taxi thingies?”

  2. When I worked there (2018 to 2020) the place was rife with waste and mismanagement. Seems not much has changed. Great share concept….but………

    God bless.

  3. According to AIN “UP” lost $275M in the first 9 months of 2022 compared to $121M loss during the same period in 2021. Real money! Although a $30M cost reduction is a good start it won’t scratch the surface of a $275M to $360M annualized kick in the chops. Sounds like a business version of Chernobyl….

  4. Would be carful quoting anything from private jet card comparison… Same guy who told everyone Wheels up was a “Strong Buy” on Forbes EVEN though he had never before provided financial advise before in his journalistic life…. Oh Yeah and its now down 80% since then, Good going Blogger!

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