DDHK.ORG - Thousands of Cathay Pacific employees are at risk of losing their jobs. This is because the airline from Hong Kong plans to remove 8.500 jobs at the company. The policy will impact about 5.900 employees inside and outside Hong Kong. Cathay will also close its regional airline, Cathay Dragon.
"We have taken every possible action to avoid job losses to date," said Cathay Pacific Group CEO, Augustus Tang, in a statement, as reported by CNN, Thursday (21/10/2020).
Among the drastic steps Cathay Pacific has taken, earlier this summer, the Hong Kong Government agreed to lead a $ 5 billion bailout from the airline, taking a minority stake. Cathay said this week it would operate only about 10 percent of pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity for the remainder of 2020, and below 50 percent for 2021.
Even so, Tang said, the company continued to burn as much as HK $ 2 billion (around Rp3,9 trillion) per month. "The changes (policy announced on) Wednesday will reduce the company's cash burn by around 500 million Hong Kong dollars (US $ 65 million) per month," he said.
Following the announcement, Cathay Pacific shares jumped 4 percent on Wednesday. [DDHK News]
