Qantas to axe 1500 staff
18.07.08
Soaring fuel costs and weakening global economic conditions have seen Qantas axe 1500 staff from its 36,000-strong global workforce. The airline has also abandoned plans to hire a further 1200 employees after cutting planned capacity growth from 8% to zero in 2008-09.
The majority of the job losses - 1300 - will go in Australia, with the remainder overseas, including at call centres in London and Tucson, which are to be closed with the loss of 99 jobs. Most of the jobs would go in ‘non-operational areas.’
Qantas Chief executive Geoff Dixon said that more than 20% of management and head office support jobs are to go by December, with some compulsory redundancies.The airline has introduced a recruitment and executive pay freeze ‘for the foreseeable future’ in order to attempt to soften the blow.
Mr Dixon described conditions in the global airline industry as being ‘as tough as I've seen it’. Qantas will also retire up to 22 older aircraft from its fleet of 228. He said the resulting route cuts would involve a reduction in capacity on some routes but not the ‘wholesale elimination’ of routes.
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