Air Seychelles Ltd. Lays Off 250 Workers

More bad news is coming to workers in the air transportation industry. As fewer and fewer people have money to fly frequently, or to ship large items long distances by plain, more and more airlines are cutting back on their staff. Of course, the rising prices of fuel are also contributing to the job cuts as well. Think of it as a kind of perfect storm for job cuts. The next workers on the chopping block are those at Air Seychelles Ltd.

Now, unless you travel in India quite frequently the odds are good that you have not heard the name Air Seychelles Ltd before. For those of you who are not familiar with the airline here is a look at how the company is described:

“The airline was established on 15 September 1977, following the merger of Air Mahé and Inter-Island Airways, as Seychelles Airlines and adopted the present title in September 1978. It started international routes in 1983 to Frankfurt and London. From 1978 until January 2012 the airline was wholly owned by the Seychelles government and as of February 2012 the UAE’s Etihad Airways bought a 40% share in the airline…. until January 2012 it also operated a small hub at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG) in a strategic alliance with Air France which served some former destinations (such as Manchester and Madrid). It is also the major ground-handling agent for all aircraft operating at SEZ (Seychelles International Airport). ”

According to reports the company is getting ready to get rid of about 250 of its workers. While that may not sound like a lot compared to other industry layoffs, it is a significant portion for Air Seychelles Ltd, and will leave the company with fewer than 500 workers on staff in total. So this layoff could have represented a loss of about one-third of the workers that the airline had.

Of course Air Seychelles Ltd is not the only airline to cut back in recent months. Some of you may recall our earlier coverage of the devastating cuts to workers of American Airlines, but for those of you who missed out on it here is an excerpt:

“He bad news is that the number of people who are going to be out of a job is still astronomically high. According to new numbers released by the company about the job losses from the round of layoffs are expected to total about 13,000 positions. So while 7,000 workers who might have been on the job market will not be, almost twice that number will be looking for new work…. According to information provided by the Associated Press cuts will come to the following positions: 4,600 maintenance workers, 4,200 baggage handlers, 2,300 flight attendants, 1,400 unnamed members of the management and support staff, and 400 pilots.

As was mentioned above the company did recently file for bankruptcy, and their parent company, AMR Corp, has ordered them to cut their costs associated with labor by about 20 percent when all is said an done. In addition the company need to cut spending by about $2 billion a year. ”