Mass redundancies are expected among the staff of Latvia’s national airline, airBaltic, in the near future, and this is the most challenging process yet to come, said Andrejs Martinovs, Chairman of the Board of airBaltic, in an interview on the Latvian Radio programme “Labrīt”.
He declined to specify the exact number of redundancies. “The situation is changing every day, as there are people who are proactively handing in their notices themselves; they have found other jobs or are moving on to other life challenges – voluntarily and in a natural way,” said Martinovs.
There is no mass exodus of staff from the company. Similarly, the company had hoped to implement a mass transition of staff to part-time or 85 per cent working hours, thereby reducing the number of redundancies, but this has not been successful.
“From the outset, we had the option of reaching a sort of collective agreement, but we were unable to do so; consequently, employees now have the opportunity to apply for a reduced workload, and this is on a voluntary basis, and we then assess each case individually and make a decision,” said Martinovs.
Martinovs mentioned that the fleet is currently being reduced and that by the end of the year there will be 36 aircraft. However, there are plans to gradually increase the fleet to 40 aircraft by 2030.
The airline has now begun a financial restructuring process in the US, known as ‘Chapter 11’, in order to reorganise its financial obligations and secure new funding.
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