KLM CEO Pieter Elbers says in an interview with it Financieele Dagblad that the airline is doing its ‘utmost best’ to present a recovery plan to Minister of Finance Wopke Hoekstra before 1 October.
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This in exchange for the 3.4 billion euros in aid, a combination of bank loans guaranteed by the state and direct loans from the government, with which KLM has to survive this difficult period.
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The airline, badly hit by the corona crisis, is in talks with eight different unions. “We have three collective labor agreements. The challenges are different. But there is real realization in everyone that we have to get out. Much is at stake. They are strong but healthy discussions ”, says Elbers.
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If it fails to make it to 1 October, the question is whether KLM will receive the loan. “These are conditions attached to a loan. So in the end those conditions must be met with the trade unions. Hoekstra has made it very clear that he does not want to ignore those conditions. Thousands of people have already left the company. There are departments where employees look around and see that their colleagues have left. It is much more drastic than the figures sometimes suggest. I am proud of the colleagues who keep their heads up in these exceptional circumstances. ”
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Elbers says he has a starting point for what the company is expected to look like in the summer of 2021. A loss of 5000 jobs is assumed. “We said: if it is 10 percent worse, you are talking about roughly 1500 jobs more. If it goes 10 percent better, it will be the other way around. If you look at what is happening now, the chance of worse is greater than the chance of better. I think you should be transparent about that. ”
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