Indonesia’s Lion Air Group lays off 2,600 employees due to COVID-19 impact

Lion Air aircraft (Source: VNA)

Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia’s budget carrier Lion Air Group on July 3 said it had to lay off 2,600 contract employees, or 9 percent of the group’s 29,000-strong workforce.

A company representative said the work contracts of those 2,600 workers of its subsidiary airlines Lion Air, Wings Air and Batik Air would not be renewed amid declining flight traffic as the pandemic has not been put under control in Indonesia.

The group said it was currently operating at just 10 to 15 percent of its normal capacity of between 1,400 and 1,600 flights per day.

 “The COVID-19 pandemic has put the airline industry in a state of coma. Meanwhile, the company still needs to pay large expenses, which creates a great challenge for us,” it said in a statement.

“We need to make the difficult decisions to ensure our business survives through operational downsizing, cost reduction and organizational restructuring amid the current airline industry situation that hasn’t return to normalcy,” the statement added./.