If the coronavirus makes victims, very real, in hospitals, it also generates collateral victims on the job market. British Airways plans to cut up to 12,000 jobs due to the impact of the pandemic on its business. This was announced on Tuesday by its parent company, the IAG group.
The latter, who owns, among other things, Iberia and Vueling, explains that he made this decision given the fact that it will take several years before air traffic returns to normal. British Airways currently has 42,000 employees. Among them, 22,600 were placed on partial unemployment.
“In recent weeks, the outlook for the aviation industry has deteriorated and we must act now,” said Alex Cruz, the boss of British Airways, in a letter to his employees.
5000 redundancies at SAS, 2000 for Icelandair
The Hispano-British group is not the only one to suffer: the Scandinavian airline SAS announced earlier today that it would part with 5,000 employees.
Icelandair also announced on Tuesday that it will lay off 2,000 employees. Icelandic company says it has no choice “to deal with the situation” but to take “important steps […] including a significant reduction in the number of employees and changes to its organizational structure ”.
This downsizing particularly affects crew members, maintenance services and ground operations. The Icelandic group specifies that “the majority of the remaining employees continue to work part-time” and that those working full-time had to undergo salary cuts, “very painful but necessary measures”, according to its CEO, Bogi Nils Bogason.
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