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Lawrence Smith
Air New Zealand has further reduced its scheduled international 787-9 services, resulting in not enough work for its remaining widebody crew.
Air New Zealand plans to cut 385 cabin crew jobs due to low international passenger numbers and additional reductions in its international network.
An internal email sent to Air New Zealand’s crew on Wednesday said that over the past month there has been a “significant continued decline” in the number of passengers booking international travel as other airlines resumed international services and charges were introduced for Managed isolation and quarantine.
Last week, the national carrier told the crew that it was canceling the scheduling of several flights on its international wide-body network, including reducing the number of passenger flights from Auckland to Los Angeles from daily to three times a week, and the interruption of passenger services from San Francisco.
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“Unfortunately, the reduced schedule means that we have a reduction in the number of crew we need for our wide body fleet,” the email read.
“We are now in a situation where we must consider the size of our team in relation to both immediate and medium and long-term demand.
“For the foreseeable future, we have about 385 more widebody cabin crew in the business than we do.”
The network downsizing was in effect for six months, but the uncertainty was expected to continue longer.
This was in line with the International Air Transport Association’s forecast that international travel was unlikely to return to pre-Covid-19 levels until 2024, the email said.
“Those of you who have flown the North American routes recently know that we are operating with very low passenger loads and even with the reduced hours we will still have flights with fewer than 50 passengers.”
In late August, Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran said there were no plans to further reduce the airline’s workforce.
The announcement of new job losses comes just weeks after Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran said there were no plans to cut its workforce beyond the 4,300 job losses that had already occurred due to Covid-19.
However, Foran had warned in June that a second phase of labor cost reduction could result in up to 2,000 additional job losses.
Wednesday’s email said the company had asked staff to make “significant personal sacrifices” as part of the cost-cutting program.
“Unfortunately, with the situation constantly changing, these sacrifices will not be enough.”
The airline had been negotiating with the E tū union on wide-ranging contracts. It was agreed to suspend those negotiations, the email said.
“This will allow us to find a solution to the problem of immediate scheduling separate from the long-term negotiation discussion.”
