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Away Profile: Pandemic Layoffs, Business Model, and Current Status

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The profile

The New York luggage brand's sales fell more than 90% in the spring of 2020; it furloughed about half its staff, saying government assistance would keep their pay whole.

  • Category: travel and hospitality
  • Pandemic-layoff role: Deepest-cut ranking company
  • Last updated: 2026-09-29

Pandemic-role map

  • Reader shorthand: luggage brand whose sales fell more than 90% in the spring of 2020; it furloughed about half its staff and said government assistance would keep their pay whole.
  • What Away did for customers: sold suitcases, bags and travel accessories online and through its own stores.
  • What broke in the pandemic: sales, which fell by more than 90% within weeks.
  • Relief role: the founders said government assistance would cover furloughed employees' full wages and benefits; no loan to JRSK, Inc., the company behind Away, appears in SBA's PPP loan data.

Before the pandemic

Away, based in New York and founded by Jen Rubio and Steph Korey, had raised roughly $180 million by early 2020, including a $100 million round in 2019 that valued it at $1.4 billion, TechCrunch reported. Its SEC filings use the corporate name JRSK, Inc.; its most recent Form D, from May 2017, lists Stephanie Korey and Jennifer Rubio as executive officers and directors. It began as a direct-to-consumer brand and later opened retail stores, ten of them by April 2020. In December 2019 The Verge reported former employees' accounts of a toxic workplace culture; Korey was replaced as chief executive by Stuart Haselden, a former Lululemon executive, and about a month later the two were named co-chief executives.

What the pandemic changed

On April 7, 2020, Korey and Rubio wrote that sales of Away's luggage, bags and organizers had fallen by more than 90% in a few weeks. The company first closed its stores while continuing to pay retail staff. Then it furloughed "about half" of its employees, many of them in customer support, and laid off another 10%. "This was a devastating decision and one we considered only as a last resort," the founders wrote.

The furlough ran through the public purse. According to TechCrunch's account of the post, the founders said that "owing to government assistance," furloughed employees "should continue to receive 100% of their wages and benefits until they can resume work full time." Laid-off staff received at least eight weeks of severance and health coverage through the end of June; the vesting cliff on their equity was waived and the window to exercise options extended. The founders suspended their own salaries, and senior leaders took pay cuts.

After the first shock

The leadership changes continued. Korey stepped down as co-chief executive by October 2020 and stayed on the board; Haselden left about four months later to run Arc'teryx, and Rubio led the company from then on, Retail Dive reported. In May 2023 Away laid off 22 people, including its chief commercial officer. In February 2024 it cut 25% of its internal staff and eliminated "a traditional executive team structure." Bloomberg reported that early in 2023 Away had been exploring strategic options, including a sale.

Where the company is now

In May 2025 Away named Jessica Schinazi, its president since late 2024 and previously president of the Americas at Dyson, as chief executive; Rubio became executive chair of the board. That year Away began selling on Amazon for the first time and took on Nordstrom as its first retail partner.

Sources

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