Air France may lay off 2,800 more jobs amid turbulence

Air France is presently grappling with grave financial worries and has warned of a troublesome future ahead for its employees. Air France-KLM, one of Europe’s top three long-haul airline group, has sent the aviation market in a tizzy after it announced that its troublesome French business was now heading straight for its sixth consecutive annual loss. This was the airline’s sharp reversal on earlier estimates that it was heading for a $271 million (200 million Euro) operating profit this year.

Air France had already announced 5,000 job cuts at its French operating wing, which was a part of a plan to at least break even this year. However, the airline has now said that it needs to make its workforce even leaner by about five percent. The airline said that this move was significant as it desperately wanted to restore profitability.
 
Alexandre de Juniac, Chief Executive of Air France, said that the company is looking to revive the airline’s fortunes by effectively “adding other measures” to the Transform 2015 plan, which has been specifically designed for the purpose.

He said that Air France had earlier set its original target of saving $2.71 billion (2 billion Euro) under its Transform 2015 plan. The airline has however abandoned its plan and was no longer on course to do so by 2015. He further said that Air France-KLM might have to adjust the deliveries of some Airbus A380 superjumbos though the profitability of its operations is likely to be improved with the arrival of more fuel efficient Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 aircrafts from 2017.