(TAN): Air France expects to cut 6,560 jobs by the end of 2022 from the current 41,000 as the airline looks to adapt itself to the post-COVID environment, the airline said.
For three months, Air France’s activity and revenue fell by 95%, and at the height of the crisis, the airline was losing EUR 15 million (USD 17 million) a day. “Recovery looks set to be very slow due to the uncertainties regarding the health situation, the lifting of travel restrictions and changing commercial demand. In this way, even on the basis of ambitious recovery assumptions, Air France predicts that it will not see the same level of activity as in 2019 before 2024,” France’s flag carrier said.
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The French government has issued guaranteed loans of EUR 7 billion to see the troubled airline group through the crisis. Air France looks to accelerate its transformation to regain its competitiveness and strengthen its leading position in terms of sustainable transition.
The airline now looks to change its domestic business model, reorganizing its support functions and continuing to reduce its external and internal costs.
Though the airline predicts to cut 6,560 jobs by the end of 2022, “the many natural departures expected over this period (more than 3,500) will make it possible to compensate more than half of these job reductions thanks to a favourable age pyramid,” the airline said.
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For the airline’s subsidiary Air France HOP!, the resizing of activity and the restructuring of the company will lead to a reduction of 1,020 jobs over the next three years from the current 2,420.
This reconstruction plan will be presented at the end of July, together with the plan for the Air France-KLM Group.
