Aftermath of Sept. 11: Aviation Job Losses Reach 400,000

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Story Filed: Thursday, August 08, 2002 1:20 PM EST

Aug 08, 2002 (Weekly Trust/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says the global aviation industry may have shed as many as 400,000 jobs in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

According to a report monitored on BBC World Business, passenger numbers have fallen since the September 11 attacks, leading to route cuts and widespread layoffs.

"Airlines seem to be exploiting current difficulties to push through more radical cost cutting programmes than is strictly warranted, often without proper consultation with the workforce," said Professor Peter Turnbull of Cardiff University Business School.

North American carriers announced more than 100,000 job losses within weeks of the terrorist attacks, while initial job losses in Europe were about 30,000.

Almost all American carriers cut at least 20 per cent of their staff, with United Airlines and American Airlines both cutting 20,000 jobs, the report found.

In North America, US Airways went for the heaviest cuts relative to the size of its workforce. Its 11,000 layoffs amounted to 23 per cent of its workforce.

Irish Aer Lingus has one of the biggest cuts to headcount ratios in Europe of 32 per cent.

Bankrupt Sabena and Swissair lead the "European league" with 12,000 and 9,000 lay-offs respectively.

British Airways has cut 7,000 jobs and is thought to be considering 10,000 job cuts in the near future, the report said.

German airline Lufthansa was the only European large carrier that did cut back on staff immediately after the terrorist attacks. But it may cut 4,000 more jobs soon.

The September 11 episodes are expected to have a more severe impact on airline traffic than the Gulf War did on US carrier because many Americans became reluctant to travel due to the 1991 conflict.

International air traffic fell 40 per cent in the 3 months following the September attacks - a drop 4 times greater than what obtained immediately after the Gulf War.

Total international passenger traffic fell 17 per cent.

The evidence suggests that the global economic go-slow was already having an effect on traffic before the attacks, but that the attacks made things much worse, the report said. Significant improvements are not expected before 2003.

(AllAfrica.com)

KEYWORD: PanAfrica

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