As the ongoing global health problem rages on, Emirates Airlines has been forced to slash a tenth of its headcount in layoffs that could rise to 15 percent or 9,000 jobs, its president said, based on a Saturday report.
The biggest airline in the Middle East, running a fleet of 270 wide-bodied planes, suspended operations at the end of March as part of a large-scale shutdown in response to the virus. It resumed on a limited network two weeks later and plans to fly to 58 destinations by mid-August, down from around 157 prior to the crisis.
Nevertheless, Emirates president Tim Clark disclosed earlier that it may take up to four years for operations to return to any degree of normality, and as recently as last week, the airline has been conducting rounds of layoffs without releasing figures.
Before the virus hit, according to its annual report, Emirates employed some 60,000 personnel including 4,300 pilots and nearly 22,000 cabin crew.
According to a BBC News article, at least 700 of the airline's 4,500 pilots have been issued redundancy notices this week.
The carrier based in Dubai sent an internal memo last month to workers stating that a three-month pay cut would be extended until September 30.
In the exception of junior workers, the state-owned airline had previously reduced basic wages by 25 percent to 50 percent. The announcement by the world's biggest long-haul airline is the company's first indication of how many jobs will be lost.
Clark said they will probably have to "let go of a few more, probably up to 15 percent," Georgia Diebelius of Mirror quoted him as saying. Before the cuts were announced last May, the Gulf carrier was the exclusive holdout among the region's three major East-West airliner on retaining staff.
According to an Emirates spokesperson, like other carriers and travel groups, the coronavirus crisis has hit Emirates very hard. "As a responsible business, we simply must right-size our workforce in connection with our limited operational requirements," Deena Kamel of The National wrote.
The aviation sector is one of the worst impacted by the coronavirus pandemic that brought the travel industry to a halt as countries shut down their borders.
Airlines also laid off staff in an attempt to save cash, postponed aircraft deliveries, and pursued government bailouts. Countries around the world have extended total financial rescue packages of $123 billion for their carriers to survive the storm.
The International Air Transport Association has said that airline companies are poised to make a consolidated net loss of over $84 billion this year because of the pandemic, the worst in the industry's history.
