American Airlines has recently detailed severance packages for high-level employees if they are laid off when the terms of federal aid expire in the fall, people familiar with the matter said. The severance packages for upper management include around nine months of pay and a little over two years of health-care coverage for at least some of the employees at the director level and above, one of the people said. The packages come as American and other airlines are preparing to shrink and offer employees voluntary separation options as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hurt demand. The virus and measures to stop it have pushed airlines including Delta, United and American to their first quarterly losses in years. The terms of $25b in federal coronavirus relief set aside for US airline payroll prohibit carriers that accepted the aid from laying off or cutting the pay rates of employees through Sept. 30. Airline executives have warned they expect they will have to shrink to compensate for weak travel demand. The high-level employees, a group that recently took pay cuts, and might receive the severance packages if they are involuntarily cut, could face more difficulty finding work at their level than other employees, said Tom McMullen, senior client partner at organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry. Severance packages “tend to ramp up for executives,” McMullen said. “Executives don’t find a new job in a month. They might find a job in a year.” He added it will likely be challenging for laid off airline employees compared with those in a single ailing company because the “sector is fighting for its life.”<br/>
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The pilots' union Balpa has accused BA of undermining talks over proposed job losses by threatening to dismiss and re-hire its members under new contracts. The airline proposes to make 12,000 staff redundant, as it struggles with the impact of the pandemic, with more than 1,000 pilot roles at risk. British Airways said it was acting now to protect as many jobs possible. It insisted no final decision had been made. Balpa has been meeting with the company, unlike some unions, including Unite and GMB, which BA says have refused to enter talks. But Balpa general secretary Brian Strutton said on Saturday night that those talks now hung "by a thread". "Balpa reps have been in consultation with BA over its proposed 1,130 pilot job losses and we've been doing that constructively and in good faith," Strutton said. "Then, on Wednesday evening, a letter from BA added another 125 job losses and also for the first time threatened all 4,300 BA pilots with dismissal and reengagement if we did not reach agreement on changes to terms and conditions. I'm appalled at the cavalier attitude shown by BA towards the Balpa reps and to its pilots. This has seriously undermined our talks which now hang by a thread."<br/>
The president and CEO of Malaysia's state energy group Petroliam Nasional Berhad, or Petronas, has been appointed to serve as chairman of Malaysia Airlines, PM Muhyiddin Yassin said Saturday. Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin will take the helm of the struggling airline. He will be replaced at Petronas by the company's chief financial officer, Muhammad Taufik Aziz, who will be promoted to president and CEO. Both appointments are effective July 1, said Muhyiddin. The management reshuffle comes as the two state-owned enterprises struggle with two of the biggest economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic: an oil price crash and a plunge in air travel. "In a challenging economic environment, there are some state-owned companies that need to be strengthened to meet the world's new normal," the PM said. "The government will continue to re-look at the leadership in state-owned companies to ensure they are achieving the country's socio-economic objectives." Wan Zulkiflee led Petronas for five years and had his contract was renewed for three years in April 2018. An oil-and-gas veteran with 37 years of experience at Petronas, he is now tasked with turning around loss-making Malaysia Airlines, whose problems began before the pandemic. "I believe that under his [Wan Zulkiflee's] leadership, Malaysia Airlines will be restructured and continue to expand as a strong and sustainable national airline company with an excellent governance," Muhyiddin said.<br/>