Australian airline, Qantas Airways Ltd. has recently reported an annual loss of £1 billion and announced that it doesn’t plan to resume the international flights before July 2021. This loss evidently comes amidst a time when the airline is struggling to maintain its liquidity during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a statement, the airline said trading conditions haven’t been as worse than these in Qantas' 100-year history and they are planning to finalize 4,000 of its 6,000 planned job cuts by the end of September to stay operational.
Reportedly, the global airline sector has been one of the badly hit sectors due to the multiple impositions of stringent travel restrictions across the world. Qantas revealed that much of this year's loss came from redundancy payments and writing down the value of assets.
Speaking on the move, Alan Joyce, Chief Executive Officer, Qantas Group, said that the impact of coronavirus on all airlines has been heavy. It has created a devastating scenario for many airlines and sprouted a question of survival for several. Recovery from this impact will take time and might be a bit slow. As for Qantas, the company anticipates a "significant underlying loss" in the upcoming financial year.
Earlier in June, Qantas revealed that it intends to slash 6,000 jobs as part of its survival plan against the coronavirus pandemic. The airline further clarified that nearly two-thirds of these redundancies will be finalized by the end of September. Apparently, these cuts account for almost a fifth of the airline's entire workforce before the coronavirus period.
Apart from these job cuts, an additional total of 20,000 Qantas workers are still temporarily stood down. Meanwhile, several carriers across the globe have announced tens of thousands of job cuts and billions of dollars of losses after facing the wrath of the COVID-19 health crisis.
Source Credit: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53831056