Air New Zealand Ltd yesterday said that it aims to cut up to 385 more cabin crew jobs due to a lack of long-haul international flying, which would take its COVID-19 related job losses to about 37 percent of its workforce.
The percentage figure is higher than the cuts to nearly 30 percent of jobs at Australia’s Qantas Airways Ltd and about 20 percent at Singapore Airlines Ltd.
Air New Zealand said in a statement that it would need fewer cabin crew due to the decline in demand on North American routes, which had led it to reduce return flights to Los Angeles to three a week from once a day and convert San Francisco flights to cargo only.
Photo: Reuters
“In the foreseeable future, we have around 385 more widebody cabin crew in the business than we have work for,” an airline spokeswoman said. “Any decision we make will be made in consultation with our people and the unions, with redundancies as the last resort.”
E tu, the union representing flight attendants, said in a statement that the latest job cuts are proposed to be carried out by December.
It called on Air New Zealand to stop outsourcing work to a cabin crew hire company in Shanghai.
Air New Zealand declined to comment on the timing of the planned cuts.
The airline had announced 4,000 job losses before the latest proposal to cut cabin crew.
The airline last week said it would extend the grounding of its Boeing Co 777 fleet until at least September next year due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, although it has a fleet of Boeing 787-9s that it can use for long-haul flights.
Its prospects in the domestic market were boosted this week by the end of a requirement for physical distancing on flights that would allow it to sell all of the seats on an aircraft.
Air New Zealand on Tuesday said it would fly a domestic schedule of about 70 to 75 percent of normal levels.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure