Airbus SE embarked on the most extensive restructuring in its history, setting out plans to cut 15,000 civil-aerospace jobs worldwide as it attempts to steer through the crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The European manufacturer plans to eliminate more than 10,000 positions across its main bases in Germany and France, part of an 11 percent reduction in global headcount, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
CEO Guillaume Faury has said the company’s output would be 40 percent lower than expected for two years due to a dramatic slump in demand for aircraft, and has previously warned it is bleeding cash.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The crisis the aviation sector is facing will be of a length and magnitude that calls for more structural and wide-ranging actions,” Faury said in a video message. “We need to act now by adapting our workforce to reflect the new situation.”
Airbus plans to cut 1,700 jobs in the UK, 900 in Spain and about 1,300 in other countries by the middle of next year, the jet maker said.
Voluntary measures such as early retirement would be the main part of the process, with compulsory cuts a “last resort,” Faury said.
The plans are subject to agreement with the relevant unions and faced swift opposition by the French government.
The extent of the job cuts is “excessive,” the French Ministry of Finance said in a statement, adding that the company must do all it could to limit the number of forced retrenchments.
Airbus has about 135,000 employees globally, with almost 81,000 of those in the hard-hit commercial-aviation division.
Caught in an aircraft-market slump that Airbus said could last three to five years, the company is striving to bring down costs, while avoiding political and labor tensions in its home nations.
US rival Boeing Co is in a similar predicament, and in late April said it would reduce its workforce by about 10 percent, or about 16,000 jobs, to conserve cash.
Unions criticized the move, with the IG Metall labor group dismissing the announcement as “short-sighted” and accusing Airbus of using the virus as a pretext for reducing the workforce.
The Unite union, which represents Airbus’ UK workers, called on the British government to “step up to the plate” to protect the sector like their French and German counterparts.
“I know everybody would like to see me saying there will be no forced layoffs,” Faury said on a call with reporters. “I cannot exclude that at the end we will not get there. That’s the hard reality I don’t like, that probably governments and my social partners don’t like either.”
He added that government-support measures had already protected thousands of jobs and encouraged lawmakers to extend furlough plans. The French and German states have committed billions of dollars to support the sector.
Separately, Ryanair Holdings PLC is planning about 3,500 job losses if it cannot agree on pay cuts with its staff, CEO Michael O’Leary said yesterday.
The budget airline had previously said that it had cut more than 250 staff from its offices around Europe and was looking at up to 3,000 cuts among pilot and cabin crew.
“We’ve already announced about 3,500 job losses, but we’re engaged in extensive negotiations with our pilots, our cabin crew, and we’re asking them to all take pay cuts as an alternative to job losses,” O’Leary told the BBC.
“We’re looking from 20 percent from the best paid captains, 5 percent from the lowest paid flight attendants, and we think if we can negotiate those pay cuts by agreement, we can avoid most, but not all job losses,” he added.
Meanwhile, Aeromexico, one of Latin America’s largest airlines, on Tuesday announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, citing the “unprecedented impact” of the pandemic.
The Mexican carrier is the latest Latin American airline to seek Chapter 11 relief after the region’s two largest — Chilean-Brazilian LATAM Airlines Group SA and Colombia’s Avianca SA — filed for bankruptcy in the US in May.
“We are committed to taking the necessary steps to secure our future by voluntarily entering the Chapter 11 process to become stronger and more resilient,” Aeromexico CEO Andres Conesa said.
Additional reporting by Reuters and AFP
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