Tampa, Fla. – It’s the busiest travel day of the season and airport staff are working overtime to make sure everyone can get home for the holiday.
“There’s going to be a lot of people in wheelchairs, sometimes it feels like I’m working alone, and I’m like double, triple,” said Tampa airport contractor Anthony Sanders.
Tampa International Airport (TPA) expects 65-75,000 passengers to pass through each day this holiday season, breaking pre-pandemic travel records. Those are just thousands of the 110 million people AAA predicts will travel across the United States
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In fact, the airport is handling 8-9% more passengers than the national average.
But when you look around, you see a lot of employees like Sanders working during the holidays.
Airlines have been affected by the pandemic, and as people begin to travel again, airports in general have yet to be fully staffed.
Sanders is a Tampa resident contracted by a company outside of TPA to assist elderly and disabled passengers in wheelchairs. He was laid off for three months during the pandemic and with the cost of living in Tampa, he faced homelessness, living out of hotels.
Now he’s back to work, he works overtime for the holidays – six days a week, eight hours or so a day, and his salary is $6.98 an hour, so he It depends on the tip.
The minimum wage in Florida is $10 an hour, so, similar to a restaurant worker, tipping brings him to the legal minimum wage.
“I mean when I got hired again, it was still like, you know, it wasn’t as busy as it is now. It’s still as if I don’t know, because I rely on my tips and I don’t really – I can make maybe $30 a day from tipping, and then, you know, us have to report their tips,” Sanders explained. “We don’t make any money. I slept in the hotel. It was very difficult, very hard. ”
Sanders will work on Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and his birthday on January 2.
“We’re short, we’re very understaffed, and we, you know, we try our best. I do my best. Every time I’m here, I do my best to support everyone, I always do my best for the people here and they too, you know, they appreciate your return,” Sanders said. .
He is also a member of SEIU 32BJ, a union that advocates for airport workers for higher wages and safer working conditions.
If you’re one of the millions of people flying this holiday season, remember two things: get there early and workers like Sanders, who rely on tips.
