Finnair cuts over 120 jobs

The Finnish airline Finnair has announced that it is making more than 120 employees redundant, following co-determination talks with representatives of personnel.
      “The cutbacks in different parts of the concern are coming from cargo, scheduled flights, technology, management, and catering”, says Taneli Hassinen, the airline’s spokesman on economics and investor relations.
      Hassinen insists that the cutbacks will not be felt by Finnair passengers, because customer service personnel will not be affected.
     
In addition to the job cuts, Finnair will temporarily lay off more than 3,000 people for periods of two or three weeks. In addition, 400 fixed term contracts which expired at the beginning of the year, or which will be expiring early this year, are not being renewed.
      The company launched the talks with personnel in June. In September, unions rejected Finnair’s calls for of a temporary five per cent pay cut, giving up holiday pay, or giving up pay hikes that had already been agreed upon. The employee representatives did not agree. Finnair now says that the rejection of the earlier proposal has led to the job cuts that are now being announced.
     
Talks with pilots are pending the result of overall labour contract talks, but discussions on how to reach cost-cutting goals still continue.
      The talks are to continue on Monday through the mediation of the National Conciliator. Disagreements involve pilots’ pension issues, and the use of outside labour.
      Finnair Cargo completed co-determination talks on Tuesday this week. Personnel will be reduced by about 20 people, and about 40 will be laid off temporarily following a sharp decline in demand for air freight services.
     
The number of passenger kilometres flown by Finnair in its scheduled services grew by more than 11 per cent last year. However, the airline’s bottom line was hurt by the decline in the average profit per ticket sold.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnair to lay off its entire cabin crew staff for two weeks as cost-cutting measure (3.12.2008)
  Finnair presents personnel with hard choice (5.9.2008)
  Finnair CEO denounces price dumping by competitors (8.8.2008)

Links:
  Finnair press release 15.1.2009: Finnair concluded long YT negotiations, efficiency measures continue