As the economy shrinks further into recession, Australian airline Qantas has revealed it will remove 500 management positions along with an additional 1,250 full time positions.
The airline has also slashed its full year pre-tax profit outlook to between $100 million and $200 million, down from its previous forecast of $500 million.
Qantas’s chief executive, Alan Joyce, said deteriorating market conditions have severely affected the airlines profits.
“Market conditions have deteriorated, especially in our international business. We are experiencing significantly lower demand, particularly in premium classes, and considerable price pressures with extensive sales and discounting by all carriers.”
In a similar move, travel agency Flight Centre is set to axe more staff, which has so far cut approximately 100 Australian jobs, and 1,000 globally.
Australia’s largest travel agency has forecast annual profit to fall by more than two-thirds because of a slump in air travel, and managing director Graham Turner has said that the slowdown will mean more job losses.
”We certainly will be losing more people just through attrition – people who resign we won’t be replacing – and we’ve been doing that for the last six to eight months.”
He also pointed to a number of cost-cutting measures the travel agency will implement in its overseas operations.
”We certainly are not going to slash and burn, we don’t want to damage our business model. We just want to make sure that our costs can come in line with our slightly decreased income.”
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