Airways to lay off 180 with revenue in freefall
Airways expects to make 180 staff members redundant in the coming months due to the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on air travel.
New Zealand’s state-owned air navigation services provider said about 25 per cent of its workforce across all areas of its business would be made redundant as it faces a 95 per cent decline in revenue.
Airways chief executive Graeme Sumner said that in the past seven days air traffic had dropped 85 per cent compared with the same week last year.
‘‘It is true that we are operating in an aviation environment unlike anything seen since the Second World War,’’ Sumner said. ‘‘In December 2019, there were 25 international carriers operating in New Zealand and now there is effectively one.’’
Airways is responsible for controlling all air movements across 30 million square kilometres of airspace in New Zealand and over the Pacific, handling more than 1 million air traffic movements a year.
In the week following the Government’s March 23 announcement that the country would go into a four-week lockdown, scheduled airline traffic declined by 47 per cent compared with the same period last year.
In the past seven days there were just 982 flights, compared with 6600 flights in the same week in 2019.
Collapsing traffic levels meant Airways was looking to reduce its costs by 30 per cent over the coming year, meaning about one in four staff would be made redundant.
Sumner said Airways had received a $70 million injection from the Government’s aviation support package launched in March. ‘‘This package has made a significant contribution to cushioning the blow, [but] it cannot realistically offset the 95 per cent decline in revenue we are currently facing.’’
New Zealand normally had a weekly average of about 703 international flight arrivals through March. In the week ended on March 28, there were 304 across the country.
Domestic air traffic halved immediately following the lockdown announcement, down from about 8600 flights weekly to 4400. Now just 5 per cent of domestic passenger flights remained and those were for freight and medical flights, Sumner said.
Airways is forecasting domestic traffic to recover at a modest pace for the rest of the year, Sumner said.
‘‘However, the industry outlook expects international air traffic will take up to two years to recover.’’