Air Canada plans to dismiss half of its employees amid business crisis

Largest Canadian airline, Air Canada plans to dismiss half of its workforce due to huge business loss during COVID-19 outbreak.

Air Canada plans to lay off its employees after reducing flights by 95 percent, the airline said in an email to employees.

With about 38,000 employees, the airline company says it does not expect a return to normal for a long time.

“Today we took the very painful decision to reduce our operations according to plan, which unfortunately means a reduction in our workforce by 50 to 60 per cent,” the email said.

The current workforce allows the airline to operate about 1,500 flights a day, using 258 aircraft.

“In the current economic climate, an operation on this scale is not viable for the future,” the airline said.

“We are doing this to preserve our cash flow, to bring the size of the company in line with expected traffic levels over the medium and long term and to position ourselves for renewed growth when business resumes.”

The Montreal-based company had laid off more than 16,500 employees by the end of March before announcing in early April that it intended to rehire them thanks to a wage subsidy program put in place by the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Amidst the closure of borders between Canada and US, Air Canada suspended most of its international flight operations to curb the spread of the pandemic.

The airline continues to serve all of Canada, but at a reduced number of airports.

The national carrier company has also contacted the union to implement on the dismissal which will affect from June 2020.

British Airways Plans To Slash 12,000 Jobs Amid Airline Jobs Massacre

Earlier, British Airways (BA) had announced plans to reduce 12,000 jobs, nearly 30 percent of its workforce.

At the end of March, the company sat on €9.5 billion of cash and undrawn general and committed aircraft finance facilities.

BA’s announcement came just three weeks after a deal signed on by Unite and GMB, which saw more than 22,000 workers furloughed on 80 percent of their salaries.