Korean Air Lines has offered employees temporary leave in a latest effort to trim costs.
The ongoing trade and diplomatic dispute with neighbour Japan is continuing to bite with South Koreans shunning Japanese goods and services, especially tourism.
Visitor arrivals to Japan from Korea plunged nearly 60% in September.
Virtually every Japanese and Korean carrier has been impacted with dozens of routes seeing capacity cuts or downgrades.
The airline suspended two Busan routes to Japan and is halting some Tokyo and Osaka flights from next month.
Now Korean Air is seeking a temporary respite by offering unpaid leave to ease payroll costs.
Employees with more than two years of service may take a three-month period of unpaid leave from November, and may extend it for a further three months until May 2020.
There has been ‘high demand’ for short-term unpaid leave, an airline spokesperson told the Korea Times.
Korean Air has a workforce of about 20,000.
The spat with Japan, US-China trade fears and a weak Korean Won have all combined to send the carrier further into the red.
Its losses widened to US$387 million and third quarter results
