Airline bosses using coronavirus as 'excuse to slash jobs', union boss says

Airline chiefs were in the firing line today after a trade union boss accused them of over exaggerating the impact from coronavirus in order to slash jobs.

Trade union head Brian Strutton told MPs that carriers were looking to “take advantage of the crisis” by cutting unnecessary headcount.

British Airways, Ryanair and Virgin Atlantic are among airlines that have announced plans to make thousands of staff redundant and fears are that there could be further cuts to come.

Strutton, general secretary of British Airline Pilots' Association, told the Commons Transport Select Committee: "I believe that airlines are exaggerating the problem. The predictions that some of the airline leaders are saying, of up to a five or six-year recovery, is not in line with industry standard predictions.

"Last week, Iata, the International Air Transport Association – which is usually the touchstone for these things – issued its new projections, and said that by the end of 2022 we would be back to 2019 levels."

He added: "We’re in a trough at the moment, we will be coming out of it over the next two-and-a-half years, and I think that airlines are egging the pudding too much to take advantage of the crisis to make changes and downsize their workforce unnecessarily."