Aeroplane manufacturer Airbus announced its plans to cut 15,000 jobs worldwide due to the coronavirus crisis’ effects on the aviation industry.
“We actually wanted to avoid such a situation,” Airbus CEO Guillarume Faury said in a call with journalists. He defended the cuts as necessary for protecting the long-term future of the company, reports BNA.
The manufacturer based in Toulouse, France, says that it has begun discussions with social partners and aims to reach an agreement by autumn 2020. It hopes to implement its job cut plans by summer 2021.
Airbus employs about 1,35,000 people internationally, 90,000 of whom work on plane parts. “The breakdown in numbers by country reflects the extent to which the business units are affected by Covid-19,” Faury explained.
Airbus did not rule out lay-offs, though it said that it was working to limit the impact of its plans as far as possible.
“Airbus is facing the gravest crisis this industry has ever experienced,” Faury said in a statement announcing the plans.
The company said that with air traffic not expected to recover to pre-Covid-19 levels before 2023, it needed to take more far-reaching measures in order to come out the other end of the crisis.
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