Mexican airline to eliminate half of workforce

Mexico City, Sep 29 (IANS/EFE) Mexicana de Aviacion plans to eliminate half of its workforce and reduce its routes and fleet of aircraft by 70 percent with a view to resuming operations in December, authorities and union leaders said.

Union sources with knowledge of the process told EFE that the Mexican airline’s cutbacks will mean the elimination of 3,900 jobs and that Mexicana will fly just 30 airplanes on 23 routes, 6 of them domestic and 17 international, most of them to and from the US and Canada.

For his part, Labor Secretary Javier Lozano acknowledged that it will not be easy for the company but “there’s a willingness among business leaders and the unions of pilots, flight attendants and ground employees” to resume operations.

Speaking at a forum on labor markets, Lozano said Mexicana’s business plan involves a “substantial (reduction) in the number of aircraft and routes and flight frequency”, as well as a new workplace model.

That will lead to a “significant cutback in job posts” and “there’s talk that the company may operate with just 30 airplanes and not with 110″, Lozano added.

The plan involves signing a new collective bargaining agreement that will be overseen by the government to ensure that work conditions and job cuts comply with the law.

Mexicana, which had been one of Mexico’s two leading airlines, stopped operating “indefinitely” Aug 28 along with its sister budget carriers Click and Link due to serious financial woes.

Prior to selling its stake in the airline to Mexican investment group Tenedora K for the symbolic price of 1,000 pesos ($77), lead shareholder Grupo Posadas filed for bankruptcy Aug 2 in both Mexican and US courts while asking airline employees to agree to sweeping layoffs and big pay cuts.

On Sep 7, a Mexican judge allowed the airline to suspend payment on its debt and left it in the hands of a court-appointed administrator.

The administrator, Javier Christlieb Morales, Mexicana’s current owners and the airline’s employees are studying ways to overcome the financial crisis affecting the airline, which has debts of roughly 11 billion pesos ($846 million).

–IANS/EFE