Air New Zealand plans to slash cabin crew numbers by nearly 1,000.
The downsizing will affect crews employed on mid to long-haul routes, as Air NZ expects to ground its Boeing 777s until April 2021.
It will also reduce staff working on its Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet.
In a live video address, Ait NZ said crew numbers would be cut on these routes from 1533 to 583.
This includes cutting all flight service managers, inflight service coordinators, flight attendants in premium services and Pacific class cabin crews.
"Based on our forecasted schedule over the next 12 months which includes significantly reduced international travel, we are proposing a reduction of 950 wide-body cabin crew roles," the airline said.
"The proposal is based on the assumption that there will be a relatively slow return of demand to international travel with no passenger flying on the 777 until April 2021."
Its finances cannot continue funding ‘such significant numbers of surplus crew’ it said.
It is seeking proposals from staff for unpaid leave but will still have to make redundancies.
The airline has 16 Boeing 777s and 14 Dreamliners.
Air New Zealand’s chief revenue officer Cam Wallace tweeted that forward bookings are right now at just 1% of capacity.
