Lufthansa has warned that it will be forced to cut more jobs and dispose of a further 50 jets, due to a “significantly lower” recovery in air traffic as a brief boost in demand during the holiday season fades away. The German carrier, which secured a E9b bailout from Berlin in June, said it expected to operate between 20 and 30% of its capacity in the last three months of the year compared with pre-crisis levels, down from an earlier forecast of 50%. The company’s shares fell 10% to E7.75 by late Monday afternoon in Frankfurt to their lowest level in more than a month. The group, which includes brands such as Austrian, Brussels, Swiss and Eurowings, had already announced that it will be faced with at least 22,000 excess staff as a result of Covid-19, and cautioned that those numbers would need to be “further adjusted”. Lufthansa said 20% of management positions will be axed next year, although it refused to specify how many more jobs would be at risk in total. Approximately 87,000 of the group’s 130,000 employees are still enrolled in Germany’s Kurzarbeit furlough scheme alone. Mira Neumaier, an official at the German services union Verdi, one of several unions representing Lufthansa staff, criticised the announcement of further redundancies. “The company will not be rescued by job cuts alone,” she said, adding that “forward-looking concepts are still missing” from the airline’s senior management. Lufthansa, which unlike most of its competitors owned about 760 jets when the pandemic hit, said it would permanently decommission a total of 150 planes, and confirmed that all 14 of its Airbus A380s would be put in “long-term storage”, along with 10 A340-600s. Those decisions would lead to a E1.1b writedown in its Q3 results, the company said.<br/>
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Air NZ is ramping up its domestic schedule over the school holidays. The airline said it had added capacity to the majority of its routes during the two-week holiday period, which starts this weekend, bringing its domestic schedule to almost 90% of pre-Covid levels. Compared with the July break, the airline was operating 1000 additional one-way flights these school holidays, general manager networks Scott Carr said. Queenstown was expected to be a popular school holiday destination, with more than 73,000 seats available in and out of the resort town. “Overall capacity to and from Queenstown will operate at 125% during the holidays compared to the same school holiday period last year,” Carr said. Air NZ’s domestic schedule was set to operate at nearly 85% of pre-Covid levels for the month of October.<br/>
A baby has been given free flights for life after her mother gave birth while still airborne. EgyptAir flight MS777 from Cairo to London had to do an emergency landing when Yemeni passenger Hiyam Nasr Naji Daaban realised she was going into labour. The pilot diverted the service to Munich, Germany, in hopes that Daaban could reach a hospital in time. However, the prospective mother delivered a baby girl before the plane could land, with the help of a doctor who happened to be on board. In response, the airline has said the child will receive free EgyptAir flights for life – though the offer seemingly only extends to Munich, where the aircraft was diverted to. “Rushdi Zakaria, Chairman of the Holding Company for Egypt, congratulated the passenger Hiyam Nasr Naji Daaban, a Yemeni national, for her safety and granting her newborn a free lifetime travel ticket, which she gave birth on board the plane during the EgyptAir flight yesterday from Cairo to London,” tweeted the airline. “Pilot Amr Abu Al-Nayin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Misr Aviation Company, stated that it is our pleasure to receive a new customer to Egypt to fly to the world on board our plane and we are also pleased to present her with a souvenir to celebrate with her family and to give her a free ticket for life on Munich flights.”<br/>