United and Spirit Airlines are hiking up pay for on board staff as they scramble to keep schedules intact after US airlines were hammered by a week of mass cancellations. According to their union, Spirit’s flight attendants are receiving double pay on any work through Jan. 4, and according to an internal memo seen by Reuters, United is offering triple time for pilots who pick up extra trips during January,

Delayed and/or cancelled flights, have caused chaos at many US airports as staff called in sick and fear of contracting COVID-19 grow. The prospect of dealing with disruptive, obnoxious, unruly passengers, certainly is a huge incentive for many pilots and cabin crew to stay home – overtime or no overtime.

Combine that with bad weather and tight staffing, and flight-tracking website FlightAware.com reports over 8,000 flight cancellations over the past eight days.

“All flight attendants, regardless of how you have obtained your pairing, will be receiving 200% pay for any pairing that touches Dec. 28 through Jan. 4,” the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said in a statement. The union represents about 4,000 flight attendants at Spirit Airlines, according to the carrier’s latest annual filing.

So, what does this mean? Are flight crews being seduced back to work by the extra dosh? Is this the offer they can’t refuse? Certainly some will accept – some won’t be able to afford not to, some will be too greedy not to, but will some accept when they should be resting, when they are too exhausted, when their nerves are shattered by cretins on board, will they be unable to resist pressure from the company along with the hiked wages, will they come to work tired, weary, with their defences down and at risk of infection. Some will.

Earlier this year, Florida-based Spirit Airlines was forced to cancel nearly 3,000 flights due to bad weather and staffing shortages.

JetBlue said in a customer note on Thursday that 75% of its crew is based in the US Northeast, a region that has been hit hard by COVID-19 infections. The carrier has already cut its schedule through Jan. 13 by about 1,280 flights.

Alaska Airlines said while the pandemic had hit its operations, the vast majority of cancellations and delays were due to bad weather. The airline last week agreed to offer some benefits such as instituting pay protections in case of any reassignments on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.

Hawaiian Airlines said it had not offered new incentives to its crew for working during the holiday period.

SkyWest blamed its operational woes on the weather and the Omicron variant, which is spreading rapidly and causing record-breaking cases across US.

And what does this sudden free spending corporate generosity portend for the future of staffing during pandemics and weather delays? The genie could be out of the bottle.