German airline Lufthansa on Thursday said that it would slash out 22,000 full-time jobs as it predicts a muted recovery in demand for travel with the coronavirus pandemic. The airline employs more than 135,000 people worldwide and about half of them are from Germany.
“The recovery in demand in the transport sector will be slow in the foreseeable future,” the airline said.
Lufthansa airlines also added that around 100 planes will be grounded after the crisis, leading to a slash of 22,000 full-time jobs in the Lufthansa group, and half of them would be from Germany itself.
Lufthansa Group is also looking out for some schemes that would allow its workforce to work for a shorter period of time and some crisis management which would help to avoid outright redundancies.
Michael Niggemann Lufthansa’s labor director Niggemann 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 that the Lufthansa Group will emerge from the crisis significantly weakened.”
Lufthansa has a total of 763 aircraft, during the peak of this pandemic hit around 700 of the aircraft were grounded and it forced to put 87,000 workers on shorter hours of working schemes which were backed by the government. The giant German airlines CEO Carsten Spohr said that it used to lose around $1.1 million per hour and would carry less than 3000 passengers per day.
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Last month Lufthansa accepted a rescue deal from the Germany government worth €9 billion to save it from collapse.
The German government decided that it would take a 20% stake in the Lufthansa firm, which it intends to sell it by the end of 2023.
The company was also forced to shut down its budget airline Germanwings in April.
