Air France plans to cut over 7,500 jobs over the next three years amid pandemic crisis

In a bid to revive the hard-hit airline industry due to COVID-19 crisis, Air France on July 3 reportedly announced that the company plans to cut over 7,500 jobs at its French arm. According to reports, the airline said that they will be cutting nearly 6,500 staff at Air France and another 1,000 in its regional French carrier Hop. The airline company, which is Europe’s second-biggest, further informed that the cuts will take place over the next three years. 

Air France believes that the recovery from the deadly pandemic is set to be very slow. The firm reportedly cited that the lifting of travel restrictions and changing customer demand as a potential cause for concern in the future. The drastic step of cutting jobs comes after revenues fell by 95 per cent and the Air France airline was losing £13.5 million per day.

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While COVID-19 continues to spread across the world, the company also believes that the activity will not return to its pre-pandemic level before 2024. While the officials are encouraging voluntary departures ahead of redundancies, the company’s flagship airline is also expected to have cut over 6,000 jobs by the end of 2022. Air France reportedly said that the ‘natural departures’ such as retirements and employees who leave of their own accord are expected to make up about half of the reductions at the airline. 

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‘Wider reconstruction plan’ 

As Hop is also expected to see 1,000 jobs cut, the airline firm said that Air France and Hop are working together with the unions to implement plans that give priority to voluntary departures, early retirement arrangements and professional and geographical mobility. The firm further reportedly added that the airline has a ‘wider reconstruction plan’ that would be presented at the end of July. 

Meanwhile, in a bid to help the airline company, a €7 billion state bailout was also reportedly granted last month, however, that has since sparked anger as the talk of job cuts arose. As per reports, the campaigners believe that the French government shouldn’t have agreed to the financial package without more protections in place to preserve jobs. Several union members and staff also staged protests across France. Even with loans from the government, the airlines continue to reduce staff numbers as coronavirus pandemic has led to a slow return to former levels of demand. 

(Image: AP) 

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