Airbus to furlough 3,000 staff in Wales after warning it is 'bleeding cash'

Airbus is to furlough more than 3,000 staff working at its site in north Wales, the company has said. The announcement came after the plane maker’s chief executive, Guillaume Faury, warned the company was “bleeding cash at an unprecedented speed”. Airbus said about half of the staff at its Broughton site would be placed on the UK government’s job retention scheme, which pays 80% of wages up to GBP2,500 a month. It is understood the company will top up salaries by a further 5% to 10%. The coronavirus pandemic has led to airlines grounding the majority of their fleet and, earlier this month, Airbus announced a plan to cut its aircraft production rates by around a third. An Airbus spokesman said the company had “agreed with its social partners to apply the government’s job retention scheme for approximately 3,200 production and production-support employees at its commercial aircraft site in Broughton”. Airbus employs 13,500 people in the UK, at Broughton and at Filton in Bristol, and 135,000 people worldwide.<br/>