ANZ slashes US routes and suspends share trading

Saturday, 16 Mar, 2020 0

Air New Zealand is planning to slash long-haul routes including the suspension of the London-Los Angeles service, Auckland to Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, and Vancouver among others.

It comes as it announces a suspension in trading in its shares and preparations for sweeping job cuts due to the coronavirus impact.

The airline may lay off nearly 4,000 employees, about 30% of the current workforce.

The trading halt will give the airline ‘more time to more fully assess the operational and financial impacts of global travel restrictions,’ CEO Greg Foran said.

"As a result of the downturn in travel Air New Zealand continues to review its cost base and will need to start the process of redundancies for permanent positions, acknowledging the important role partnering with unions has in this process," the airline said in a statement.

It doesn’t plan to axe any domestic routes but capacity will be reduced by about 30%.

Foran says measures already taken such as unpaid leave don’t go far enough if the airline is to get through the coronavirus crisis in a healthy financial state.

"We are now accepting that for the coming months at least Air New Zealand will be a smaller airline requiring fewer resources, including people," he said.

"We are working on redeployment opportunities for some of our staff within the airline and also to support other organisations."

The airline is working with unions to ‘ensure the right outcome for all staff.’

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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.

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