Nigeria’s main airline, Air Peace, affected by the Covid-19 crisis, said on Tuesday it had to lay off pilots and cut wages.
Faced with “the devastating effects on its operations and its financial health” of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the management of Air Peace indicates in a statement that it had to take “a painful but legitimate decision”, by laying off some of its pilots and in revising downwards “the salaries of all staff”.
“This decision was taken for the good of the company and its nearly 3,000 employees, the pilots concerned included” and to avoid “its collapse”, she adds.
The management of the largest Nigerian airline, which provides domestic and international flights, does not indicate the number of licensed pilots, but aviation sources say that the measure would affect 70 of them.
Many airlines around the world have had to take similar measures for their survival, as air traffic has been deeply affected by the effects of the covid-19 pandemic.
Nigeria recently relaxed restrictive measures taken in an attempt to stem the pandemic, but the recovery in economic activity remains partial.
Since its first case in February, Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with 200 million inhabitants, has had more than 44,000 cases of coronavirus, including 896 fatalities, according to the latest official figures.
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