BA has set out plans to make up to 12,000 of its staff redundant because of the global collapse in air travel. The airline’s CE Alex Cruz told BA’s 42,000 staff on Tuesday that the company “must act decisively now to ensure that British Airways has a strong future” and that means more than one in four jobs must be cut. Cruz said the carrier, which has placed 22,600 people on the government’s furlough scheme, “cannot expect the taxpayer to offset salaries indefinitely”. “Yesterday, British Airways flew just a handful of aircraft out of Heathrow. On a normal day we would fly more than 300. What we are facing as an airline, like so many other businesses up and down the country, is that there is no ‘normal’ any longer,” Cruz said in a letter to staff . “We are a strong, well-managed business that has faced into, and overcome, many crises in our hundred-year history. We must overcome this crisis ourselves, too.” Cruz said the airline and its parent company IAG had informed the government and its trade unions about its plans to cut jobs, and would begin a consultation period with staff and unions immediately. Unions responded with anger.<br/>
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Cathay Pacific said Tuesday that the company will continue to reduce its capacity of passenger network to 3% in May amid the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. Cathay Pacific and its subsidiary airline Cathay Dragon plan to operate a bare skeleton passenger flight schedule in May and June. In May, Cathay Pacific will operate two flights per week to London, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Sydney and Delhi; and three flights per week to Tokyo, Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore. Cathay Dragon will operate three flights per week to Beijing and Shanghai, and Kuala Lumpur. Cathay Pacific said the two airlines will continue this skeleton passenger flight schedule for the first three weeks of June, while they intend to operate additional passenger flights from June 21 to June 30, which will increase the operating capacity in June to approximately 5% across the passenger network. Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried a total of 311,128 passengers in March, a decrease of 90% compared to the same period last year. As for the first quarter this year, the two airlines carried 52% fewer passengers than they did in the same periods last year.<br/>