For Brittany Floyd, travel is life. She’s been a flight attendant for six years, and is also the founder of a small travel company.
"It's tough because in the travel industry, all of us at once are dealing with exactly the same thing. In the past, if an airline went bankrupt, you could take your severance package and you could go work for another airline. At this time, there is nowhere to send you," she explained.
Like thousands of other flight personnel across the country, Floyd accepted an extended leave offer which means a major pay cut. She'll still get those flight and health benefits, but for now she doesn't have the financial security she's come to count on. She was also planning to lead a group trip to Ghana this spring, that of course was cancelled.
"In the travel industry, you make a lot of deposits that are not refundable. A lot of the insurance companies don’t cover pandemics. I'm losing a lot of money with my business and I might be laid off from my job. I've been in a constant state of anxiety," she shared.
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Floyd says she believes it could be a while before travel rebounds, when people gain the confidence to fly again and have excess funds to fly for leisure, so she’s had to come up with a "Plan B" that includes going back to school for her MBA.
"At this point, it's really challenging because my whole life stopped in one month. It forced me to make these really hard decisions that people would make in a year or two in a few weeks," she said.
Floyd also started travel therapy sessions on Instagram live for others to talk about how the loss of travel has affected their lives.
"People don't really understand that this might be a lifelong dream," she said. "I had a group that was going to Ghana. A lot of us are from the African diaspora. It's not just going to Ghana, it's going to our homeland, it's going to the exact point at which every one of our ancestors have walked through the gate of no return and came to the U.S."