With Air New Zealand's operations severely affected by the global coronavirus crisis the airline has started talking to staff about cutting up to 3,500 jobs, including making 387 pilots redundant.
In a statement today an Air New Zealand spokesperson said: "We started the consultation process with our staff yesterday to reduce the size of our workforce by up to 3,500 roles."
"It’s expected Air New Zealand will be a much smaller airline for some time even beyond the initial impact of Covid-19.
"The airline, pre-Covid-19, employed 12,500 people around the world and it’s expected that even in a year’s time it will be at least 30 per cent smaller than it is today.
"We understand that this is a very difficult time for many Air New Zealanders."
The airline’s looking to cut up to 3,500 jobs after suffering a drastic cut in demand due to the pandemic.
Today New Zealand Air Line Pilots’ Association (NZALPA) President Captain Andrew Ridling said in a statement: “Yesterday NZALPA met several times with Air New Zealand CEO Mr Greg Foran and his executive team to continue our discussions on cost-cutting measures relating to the effects on the airline from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
“NZALPA was told by Air New Zealand that they proposed to make 387 pilots redundant as ‘the most economically efficient surplus’ resulting from the proposed Air New Zealand flight schedule."
The news comes after the national carrier slashed it's flight capacity by 95 per cent earlier this month allowing services only for essential travel and to keep air freight moving. There used to be more than 400 flights daily around the country.
Air New Zealand's chief revenue officer Cam Wallace also shared "stark" statistics which showed around only two or three people per flight.
Late last month, Air New Zealand said it was applying for the Government's wage subsidy though. The news came after the Government earlier announced a rescue package of a loan of up to nearly $1 billion .
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