Emirates airline has cut a tenth of its workforce during the novel coronavirus pandemic in layoffs that could rise to 15 percent, or 9,000 jobs, its president said, according to a report on Saturday.
The Middle East's largest carrier, which operates a fleet of 270 wide-bodied aircraft, halted operations in late March as part of global shutdowns to stem the spread of the virus.
It resumed two weeks later on a limited network and plans to fly to 58 cities by mid-August, down from about 157 before the crisis.
However, its president Tim Clark has said previously that it could take up to four years for operations to return to "some degree of normality," and that the airline has been staging rounds of layoffs as recently as last week, without disclosing numbers.
Before the crisis hit, Emirates employed some 60,000 staff, including 4,300 pilots and nearly 22,000 cabin crew, according to its annual report.
Clark said in an interview with the BBC that the airline had already cut a tenth of its staff and that Emirates "will probably have to let go of a few more, probably up to 15 percent".
A company spokeswoman told AFP the airline had nothing to add to the report.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said that airlines are in line to make a combined net loss of more than $84 billion this year in the wake of the pandemic crisis, the biggest in the industry's history.
Clark said in the interview that Emirates was "not as badly off as others" but that the crisis hit just as it was "heading for one of our best years ever."
The Dubai-based airline had reported a bumper 21 percent rise in annual profits in March.
Agence France-Presse
DUBAI -- Major international airline Emirates is asking staff to take unpaid leave for up to a month at a time due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus that has led to flight cancellations around the world.
Emirates has cancelled flights to Iran, Bahrain and to most of China because of the virus, and countries around the world have placed strict restrictions on entry of foreigners.
The airline has more resources than it needs as a result of cutting frequencies or cancelling flights to some destinations, said Chief Operating Officer Adel al-Redha in a statement on Tuesday.
"Considering the availability of additional resources and the fact that many employees want to utilize their leave, we have provided our employees the option to avail leave or apply for voluntary unpaid leave for up to one month at a time," he said.
Emirates Group, the state-owned holding company that counts the airline among its assets, has asked staff to consider taking paid and unpaid leave as it seeks to manage a "measurable slowdown" in its business, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing an internal company email.
The group had more than 100,000 employees, including more than 21,000 cabin crew and 4,000 pilots, at the end of March 2019, the end of its last financial year.
Major concerts and events in the United Arab Emirates, an air transit center that includes tourism and business hub Dubai, have been cancelled or postponed as the coronavirus spreads in the Gulf.
The airline industry's largest global body IATA on Monday urged Middle Eastern governments to provide support to airlines as they try to manage the impact of the outbreak.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
DUBAI -- Emirates and Boeing were poised on Wednesday to seal a compromise deal that would see the Dubai carrier order around 30 787 Dreamliners, paving the way for a reduced order for delayed 777X jets, people familiar with the matter said.
Emirates tentatively ordered 40 Dreamliners in 2017 but "tough" last-minute talks to finalize the order this week have hinged on negotiations over the fate of a massive separate order for 150 777X after the latter ran into delays, they said.
A restructuring of the 777X order may, however, not be highlighted officially at the Dubai Airshow, where Emirates plans an announcement for 0700 GMT on Wednesday (3 p.m. in Manila).
Emirates and Boeing declined to comment.
Sources cautioned talks were still going on in Dubai and the number of aircraft ordered could be subject to last-minute adjustments, but said it was unlikely Emirates would take all 40 787 jets announced at the largest Middle East air show in 2017.
One source said the order could involve as many as 35 787s.
Emirates has been looking at reducing part of its 777X order, which the airline's president Tim Clark said on Tuesday could be influenced by the delays and in turn determine whether it went ahead with a 787 deal.
Emirates says it no longer knows when it will receive its first 777X, which was supposed to be delivered next year. Boeing has said the 777X will be delivered in 2021.
Easing an eight-month-old crisis over the grounding of its smaller 737 MAX, Boeing had earlier at the Nov 17-21 show won tentative or firm orders for 60 of the grounded MAX jets.
But industry sources had warned that Boeing had risked leaving Dubai without resolving the critical set of interlocking deals with Emirates, the industry's largest customer for wide-body jets and the backbone for the 777X program.
A high-profile order announcement on Wednesday would also effectively deliver a message of support from Dubai for the troubled US planemaker, whose ongoing MAX crisis has harmed Emirates sister carrier flydubai, analysts said.
The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, is a close ally of the United States, which has poured support into the region amid tensions between Iran and Gulf Arab states that provided a tense backdrop to the Middle East industry event.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Pope Francis and Grand Imam of al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb kiss each other after signing a document on fighting extremism, during an inter-religious meeting at the Founder's Memorial in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Monday. The Pope is on a three-day historic visit to the gulf state, the first by a pontiff.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
