Ray Pabon Boston JetBlue flight attendant COVID-19 death. Latest air steward to die from coronavirus as attendants express concern over continued flights.
A JetBlue flight attendant has died from coronavirus, making him the third cabin crew member for the airline to pass away from the pandemic sweeping the US and the rest of the world.
Ray Pabon, 51, based out of Boston, Massachusetts died on Monday with a local colleague saying they are now ‘scared to death’ to go to work after the latest death of an in-flight crew member.
Pabon got ill about a month ago and spent the last couple of weeks in hospital but was not able to recover. He lived with diabetes, his cousin said.
‘He started feeling sick at the end of March. His health started deteriorating, and they had to sedate him,’ Wanda Aviles told Boston 25 News.
‘They had sedated him because he wasn’t doing very well. On Friday, they took him off the sedation, and he never came back.’
While most flights around the country have been canceled, JetBlue has yet to ground many planes, forcing flight attendants to continue working- but at what cost?
Of note, JetBlue said Pabon has not been on a flight recently. To date it remained unclear how the Boston JetBlue based flight attendant came to contract the deadly bug.
The deceased’s family has now set up a GoFundMe page to raise $10,000 for funeral costs.
In Massachusetts Thursday morning, there were 29,918 cases of coronavirus and 1,108 deaths reported.
Although many flights around the country have been canceled due to lack of demand, JetBlue has yet to ground many planes.
JetBlue has given in-flight staff gloves and wearing provided masks is optional.
Flight attendants express concern amid recent COVID-19 deaths:
Before Pabin passed away, two staff members had died from COVID-19.
Ralph Gismondi, 68, was based at New York’s JFK and died April 5. Jared Lovos, 28, (former crew) worked in HR at JFK and died April 9.
One employee, who wished to remain anonymous, condemned passengers taking advantage of cheap flights to travel during the pandemic.
‘As I’m watching my co-workers around me die, I’m scared to death to go to work now. But I don’t have a choice, because I have to pay my bills,’ the employee told Boston 25 News.
‘The people that are flying now, they shouldn’t be flying. We are flying first-time people around the country who are cashing in on a $17 flight that should be $370. They don’t understand that they are putting everyone at risk.’
Posted another anonymous flight attendant on social media recently: ‘I am 27 weeks pregnant and a FA.’
‘On Sunday I started coughing and a sore throat, my body and chest aches, but I don’t have any fever and still breathing ok, so that’s my only hope. I got tested yesterday for COVID-19 and I’m praying it comes back negative. So scared for my baby. What a difficult time to be pregnant and being a FA.’
Airlines are hopeful that U.S. passenger traffic, which has dropped by 95 per cent due to the coronavirus pandemic, will begin to recover by October but have warned that the slowdown in air travel could extend into next year and even longer the dailymail reports.
Today there are about 5,000 planes flying around the world. A year ago there were approximately 18,000 in the sky, according to Flight Radar 24.
