By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – Laid-off American Airlines flight attendants who used to work for TWA now have a better chance of getting their old jobs back.
American furloughed more than 14-hundred former TWA employees shortly after it bought the airline in 2001.
Last week, American told some of them their rights to their old jobs would expire.
But U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill says the airline has now agreed to extend those recall rights another two months. McCaskill helped broker the deal between American and the flight attendants' union.
She says it buys the flight attendants time to negotiate a permanent agreement.
"The permanent solution is that these men and women be allowed to remain on the recall list for potential rehire," McCaskill said. "The next rehire American does is going to be all former very senior TWA employees."
The TWA workers were put at the bottom of the American Airlines seniority list-meaning they'll be the last to be re-hired.
McCaskill says she has introduced legislation that would require recall rights to be extended to 10 years.