More than 10,000 British airways workers are being terminated as a result of the financial impact of Covid-19 on the business.
British Airways, like other airlines, has suffered deeply from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. In the three months to the end of June, it reportedly lost more than £700m. This has underlined the airline’s decision to terminate employee positions as part of a major cost-cutting initiative, which it insists is vital to ensure long-term survival of the business.
A spokesperson for British Airways said: “Our half-year results, published last week, clearly show the enormous financial impact of COVID-19 on our business. We have to make difficult decisions and take every possible action now to protect as many jobs as possible”.
He added that while they never could have anticipated being in a position of making redundancies, more than 6,000 colleagues have now indicated that they wish to take voluntary redundancy from the British Airways.”
This comes after the British Airways announced that more than 6,000 staff across the business have applied for voluntary redundancy. This implies that staff will be told that they do have a role but will have to sign a new contract, most likely with lower pay and worse terms and conditions.
Trade union Unite, the general union representing workers and all industrial sectors across the UK has however disclosed that a further 4,000 of the redundancies are compulsory and has warned of balloting for possible strike action over the plans.
Howard Beckett, assistant general secretary at Unite, said 4,000 of the union’s members have also been “forced out”, blaming “naked company greed”. He added that workers are being forced out of the job they love.
“This is a very bleak day for the incredible British Airways workforce and will go down in the history of the airline as the day that it put the interests of the boardroom ahead of its passengers and workforce.”
Howard Beckett
He added, “These workers have given years of dedicated service to this company, some as many as forty years, and indeed to our country, as many were involved in the repatriation of British citizens at the outset of this pandemic.”
International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways, announced in April that it would cut up to 12,000 jobs out of a total of 42,000, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Staff being made redundant will have the option of entering the airline’s priority return pool and will be fast-tracked into any new roles that become available.
The cuts mainly affects cabin crew, engineers and airport staff as pilots have voted to accept a package including job and pay cuts aimed at avoiding a larger number of redundancies.
The airline which relies mainly on business travel and long haul routes to destinations such as the US, Australia and India insists it is trying to ‘protect as many jobs as possible’ but does not expect the aviation industry to recover fully until at least 2023.
