Reportedly the airline Lufthansa said that it would have to slash 22,000 full time jobs as it predicts a muted recovery in demand for travel following the coronavirus pandemic.
"The recovery in demand in the air transport sector will be slow in the foreseeable future," the airline said. About 100 aircraft will remain grounded after the crisis, leading to "a total of 22,000 fewer full time positions in the Lufthansa Group, half of them in Germany".
The posts make up 16 per cent of the Lufthansa Group's total workforce of 135,000. The airline said however that it would look at how it could use schemes for shorter work hours and other crisis arrangements to avoid outright redundancies. Michael Niggemann, who heads the airline's human resources and legal affairs departments said "Without a significant reduction in personnel costs during the crisis, we will miss the opportunity of a better restart from the crisis and risk the Lufthansa group emerging from the crisis significantly weakened”.
Around 700 of the group's 763 aircraft were grounded at the peak of the lockdowns and it was forced to put 87,000 workers on government-backed shorter hour’s schemes. Lufthansa's supervisory board last week approved a nine-billion-euro bailout deal from the German government. The bailout will see the government take a 20 percent stake in the group, with an option on a further five per cent plus one share to block hostile takeovers.
