COVID19: Air Canada to Cut 5,000 Jobs

• COVID19: Air Canada to Cut 5,000 Jobs

Following the closure of several routes due to coronavirus pandemic, Air Canada has announced it would be laying off over 5,000 flight attendants across the country’s largest airline.

According to Wesley Lesosky, the head, Air Canada, 3,600 employees would be cut off from mainline while all 1,549 employees of Air Canada Rouge would also be laid off.

The company said it would affect about 60 percent of flight attendants at the two sections and the layoffs would take effect by April 2020.

While the airline admits the situation was temporary and the affected employees would return to active duty once the airline resumes full operations, the question being asked by the employees was when given current global crisis.

The airline announced it would stop flight operations on most international routes starting from March 31, 2020.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 239,000 people have been infected globally with more than 10,000 death cases. The organisation, however, warned that the pace of spread has increased in recent times given that 100,000 people were infected in 12 days compared to the first 100,000 cases that took three months.

Countries have imposed restrictions on flight operations and movements to curb the spread of the virus and impacts on the wider economy.

Central banks across the world have started announcing stimulus packages to contain the impacts of the virus of economic growth, businesses and people. President Trump led with a $1 trillion stimulus package that cut across key sectors and American people.

The Central Bank of Nigeria also announced a N1.1 trillion package to support the manufacturing and healthcare sectors while South Africa on Thursday lowered interest rates by 100 basis points and on Friday announced a stimulus package to help support businesses.

Despite the number of infected people in Italy now surpassing that of China, China reported zero cases in the last two days, even in the outbreak city of Wuhan.

Air Canada’s stock value has lost more than 76 percent of its value in the last two months.