Lufthansa still has the equivalent of 10,000 too many full-time employees on its books, according to its CFO, Remco Steenbergen. This is despite the airline’s workforce already shrinking by 24,000 full-time roles since the pandemic began over a year ago.
Almost every airline is continuing to suffer from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While some have been able to recall staff, others haven’t been so fortunate. For example, next week, British Airways is set to operate just 7% of its pre-pandemic schedule. Many airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa included, have seen that downsizing is the only long-term solution to cope with the effects of the pandemic on the aviation industry.
10,000 roles too many
Earlier today, while presenting the Lufthansa Group’s first-quarter results, CFO Remco Steenbergen revealed that Lufthansa currently still has a relatively large surplus of employees. According to the airline, it has an excess of 10,000 “full-time equivalent roles”.
But what does this mean? If everybody worked full time, there would be 10,000 too many employees. However, if two individuals worked part-time with 50% of the hours of a full-time employee, they would also add up to a single full-time equivalent role. According to its latest results, as of March 31st, the Lufthansa Group employed 111,262 people. This was down 19% from 136,966 the previous year.
This article originally appeared on Simple Flying