United Airlines said on Wednesday that further job cuts will be necessary as it continues slashing costs in order to get out of bankruptcy.
The No. 2 US airline declined to confirm or deny a published report that it is considering eliminating 6,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force, saying its business plan remains under revision and no final decisions have been made.
United spokeswoman Jean Medina said the carrier is in "productive" discussions with its board of directors, creditors committee, labor leaders and other key stakeholders, and said job cuts will be part of the overhauled business plan.
"We've said consistently we're moving forward on a wide range of cost-reduction initiatives and we've set some initial cost-saving targets in a number of areas," she said.
"It is clear that achieving cost competitiveness will require additional job reductions over time. But the details of how we achieve the savings we need and the potential impact on our work force are still under discussion, so it would be premature for me to comment on specifics," Medina said.
The Financial Times, citing unidentified sources, said the possible 6,000 job cuts would be phased in over time as part of productivity changes and further outsourcing. The report said CEO Glenn Tilton is to submit the revised business plan to the board by the end of this month.
United has about 62,000 employees, down from 100,000 before the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Spokesmen for the pilots' and machinists' unions said on Wednesday they were not immediately aware of a plan to cut jobs.
Tilton said in a recorded message to employees a day earlier that the Elk Grove Village, Illinois-based airline has targeted cost-saving steps that would save US$625 million in annual expenditures on its call center, maintenance, airport stations and commuter-carrier agreements. He did not detail how the savings would be achieved.
Asked if job cuts would be part of those measures, Medina said they "might" be.
Operating in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since December 2002, United already has imposed more than US$2.5 billion in annual wage and benefit cuts on its employees.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS