The European aircraft manufacturer Airbus is in danger of collapse warned the company’s chief executive. It seems that the situation in the company is increasingly getting worse.
On September 22, 2020, speaking to the French radio station RTL, Guillaume Faury, the CEO of Airbus, said that the “business is potentially at risk” if the company does not take the right measures to bridge over the economic shutdown.
After airlines worldwide have slowed or even canceled deliveries of ordered aircraft, Faury said that Airbus needs to cut a total of 15,000 jobs. This means that the company would be forced to lay off more than 11% of its workforce.
“The situation is so serious, and we are faced with so much uncertainty, that I think no one can guarantee there won’t be compulsory redundancies if we’re to adapt to the situation, especially if it evolves further,” said Faury.
Faury said that the company will do its best to cut costs without compulsory redundancies. However, the CEO cannot guarantee it will not happen.
“What I say clearly is that we have a lot of work to do, we will do everything we can to avoid arriving at that point,” Faury told.
Earlier in July 2020, Airbus considered that the compulsory redundancies in the United Kingdom would affect 1,700 employees. Significantly more workforce, around 10,000 employees, would be laid off in Airbus factories in Germany and France.
On September 14, 2020, in a general business update letter Faury has allegedly warned his 130,000 employees that pursuing the voluntary redundancies could not be enough to cut the company’s costs down because the passenger traffic could be recovering from the crisis slower than expected.