Airlines could take five years to recover from Covid-19 crisis
Planemaker Airbus warned on Wednesday that the recovery in the aviation industry from the coronavirus crisis may take up to 5 years time as airlines turn to layoffs and pay reductions as they fight for survival.
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Airbus chief executive, Guillaume Faury, warned on Wednesday it could take “three to five years” for passengers to be as willing to fly as before the crisis.
Faury said: “We are now in the midst of the gravest crisis the aerospace industry has ever known.”
The lockdown across the world to prevent the spread of the virus has seen passenger flight revenues all but wiped out.
British Airways, a major Airbus customer, on Tuesday evening announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs, almost a third of its workforce.
During the first three months of 2020, Airbus was unable to deliver more than 60 planes to customers because of quarantine restrictions.
The jet manufacturer's core profits fell by 49% in the first quarter of the year to €281m, while revenues slumped by almost €2bn to €10.6bn.
As a result, it cut production and furloughed thousands of staff, including over 3,000 people at its facility in Wales and further restructuring measures were possible in the near future.
“For us, the urgent priority is to implement a short-term cash containment plan,” said Faury. “We are doing this, and address[ing] the longer-term cost structure to ‘right-size’ the company.”