Lufthansa announced its intention to lay off about 22,000 full-time employees, as it sees no hope of demand for travel recovering any time soon, given the pandemic situation.
The German airline has decided to do away with 16 per cent of its 135,000 strong workforce. Of the 22,000 jobs that are at risk, 50 per cent are in Germany itself.
However, the Company is also looking at ways to avoid major dismissals, by considering shorter work hours and other crisis-management measures.
According to the head of HR of Lufthansa, there appears to be no option for the airline to work on a more effective way to resume operations without trimming down the existing workforce, as a cost-cutting measure.
Swiss, Brussels and Austrian Airlines are also part of the Lufthansa Group, and all of them are struggling to stay afloat due to the grounding of flights ever since the coronavirus outbreak brought the aviation sector to a standstill. The lockdowns witnessed about 700 aircraft of the Group being grounded, which forced about 87,000 workers to survive on shorter hours schemes funded by the government.
With daily passengers being reduced to 3,000 from the usual 350,000, Lufthansa reported a net loss of €2.1 billion in the first quarter. Its position on Frankfurt’s Dax 30 index was also lost following a dip in its share prices.
And last week, it entered into a bailout deal with the German government, worth €9 billion, which will allow the Government to be its biggest shareholder, with a 20 per cent stake in the Group.
