Jobs to go at Ryanair

Ryanair says it will cut 200 jobs due to an expected 20 per cent drop in passengers through Dublin.

Ryanair said the cuts would be among pilots, cabin crew and engineers.

It will cut its Dublin-based aircraft by 20 percent and blamed rising airport charges for putting further pressure on budget-conscious travellers.

Earlier, Swiss aircraft maintenance group SR Technics said it planned to close its Dublin airport operation, putting 1,135 jobs on the line, due to tough conditions and a loss of contracts.

Virgin Atlantic to cut 600 jobs

Virgin Atlantic is planning to cut up to 600 jobs.

The airline said it was consulting with staff about the possibility of redundancies across the business.

Virgin Atlantic chief executive Steve Ridgway said: "No airline is immune from the recession.

"With falling demand for travel, airlines have to reduce their costs through a variety of measures including cutting capacity, freezing pay, unpaid leave and, regrettably, adjusting staff numbers."

The airline said it could not rule out compulsory redundancies.

Air France to cut 1,200 jobs after huge loss

Air France-KLM is to cut around 1,200 jobs after lower ticket revenues and dwindling cargo volumes pushed it to a third-quarter loss.

The company reported a 505 million-euro ($653 million) net loss in the three months ended December 31, compared with a year-earlier profit of 139 million euros.

The Paris-based airline will also cut 1.2 billion euros from capital spending and reduce capacity by two per cent as it targets a positive operating profit in fiscal 2009.

It said the results “reflected the increasing severity of the economic downturn”. It unveiled plans to reduce staff by 1,000 to 1,200 jobs this year through a hiring freeze and by not replacing retirees, although it said there would be no layoffs.

“Activity in the third quarter reflected the increasing severity of the economic downturn,” Air France said. “We will continue to assess all our costs in order to achieve additional savings wherever possible.”

The three-month loss came after cargo traffic fell by almost 13 per cent and lower oil prices forced the company to reduce fuel surcharges to passengers, hurting ticket revenue.

While passenger traffic increased 3.4 per cent in the quarter, it slipped 1.9 per cent in January, when the drop in cargo traffic accelerated to 23 per cent.

Air France said contracts to fix the cost of fuel purchases had a “negative impact” following the 76 per cent drop in crude since July and that it would unwind those positions.

SAS reducing workforce by 40 per cent

Scandinavian airline SAS is to axe 3,000 jobs in a major restructuring following significant losses last year.

Another 5,600 employees will leave as part of operations that are to be sold or outsourced, as overall staff numbers are cut by 40 per cent, from 23,000 to 14,000.

It comes as SAS reported net losses of 6.32bn kronor ($757m; £532m) in 2008, 2.77bn in the fourth quarter alone, after a profit of 636m kronor in 2007.

The Stockholm-based carrier is to also sell Air Baltic, and shed other stakes. The biggest divestment will come as the airline sells its money-losing Spanish subsidiary Spanair unit to a Spanish consortium for one euro, which will see 3,000 employees leaving SAS’s operations.

SAS chief executive Mats Jansson said 2008 was “one of the most challenging and turbulent years that the entire aviation industry has ever experienced.”

"During the year, we saw a period of record-high oil prices, a financial crisis that heavily intensified during the final quarter and which led to an economic recession in many markets,” he added.


Engine maker to cut 1,000 jobs

Aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney Canada is to lay off up to 1,000 workers from its global operations.

The company said it told its 10,000-strong workforce that around 10 per cent would go within the next few months.

Employees of the Quebec-based company were also told they would have to take 10 unpaid days off throughout the year on top of a two-week summer shut down.

"Given the economic context, we’ve got to put measures in place on one side to reduce costs across the company and on the other side to reduce our global workforce,” said spokesman Pierre Boisseau.

“The big aircraft manufacturers have announced production reduction, cancelled orders and staff reductions, so this is having a direct impact on our business activities.”

P&WC builds engines for companies such as Bombardier, Embraer and Cessna.
Cessna, the world’s largest maker of corporate jets, announced last month it would lay off 4,000 people. A week ago, Bombardier said it would cut 1,360 jobs, saying it expected the business jet market to fall by 10 per cent this year.

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