A 51-year-old JetBlue flight attendant just died from the coronavirus, the third casualty for the company, and now one of his colleagues from Boston admitted he’s “scared to death” to report for work.

Ray Pabon, a diabetic, died on April 13 after having fallen ill a month ago. He was in the hospital for several weeks but failed to recover.

“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.”

A GoFundMe was set up by his family in the hopes of raising $10,000 for his funeral costs.

According to JetBlue, Pabon had not been on any recent flights. While a lot of airlines have canceled flights across the country, JetBlue has not grounded many planes.

While JetBlue has provided gloves and masks to in-flight staff, wearing the masks is optional.

Prior to Pabon’s passing, two other staff members had also died from COVID-19.

Ralph Gismondi, 68, died on April 5 and was based at JFK in New York while Jared Lovos, 28, died on April 9 while working in HR, also at JFK.

An anonymous employee criticized people who were traveling during the pandemic to take advantage of cheap flights.

“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,” said the employee.

“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.”

Airline traffic has precipitously dropped by roughly 95 percent due to the coronavirus pandemic. Airlines are hoping US passenger traffic will pick up again by October but have also warned that the travel fears may extend to next year or more.

Last year, there were about 18,000 planes flying around the world. Nowadays, that figure is closer to 5,000, said Flight Radar 24.

 

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