Having declared a state of emergency in mid-March and recording monthly losses of $109 million since the closure of its national borders, the Moroccan flag carrier has announced its intention to execute a massive sell-off of its fleet which will entail a sale of 20 aircraft, namely; 4 Embraers, 4 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 12 Boeing 737 aircraft. This sell-off comes coupled with a significant reduction to the airline’s workforce that will see layoffs to 30% of its global staff.
As part of a recovery strategy to mitigate the impact from the carrier‘s grounding and air travel restrictions, the upper management and staff representatives of RAM as well as the representatives of the National Air Transport Federation (FNTA) have decided to halt operations in certain sectors of the airline. This decision was made public on July 2nd.
According to Morocco World News, the layoff plan is set to affect 858 jobs within the carrier as confirmed by Abdelhamid Abbou, Royal Air Moroc Chief Executive Officer. Within those jobs, 180 will be pilots (a third of the airline’s pilots) 30% will be from the airline‘s cabin crew and 13% from ground personnel and baggage handlers.
The airline has also set up a voluntary redundancy plan for members of its work staff aged over 57 years with 15-year terms of service. However, the conditions and parameters behind this plan are still to be confirmed as they are under review.