Air France planning to cut 5,122 jobs to offset losses

Air France flights have not been able to bring profitability to the airline for quite some years now. The ailing French carrier is now looking toward other ways to curb the ever-growing losses.

Air France recently announced it is planning to cut 5,122 jobs, which will significantly reduce about one tenth of its workforce. The airline, however, said that the job cuts would not be entailing forced redundancies.

The airline in a statement said that one-third of the job cuts would come about by not replacing the workers who would be retiring between now and until the end of 2013.

The rest of the job cuts would emanate from early retirements, voluntary redundancies and switching workers to part-time jobs or job sharing.
The airline said that it will be laying off around 2,000 ground staff. The remaining cuts will have an impact on pilots and cabin crew.

Air France-KLM said that it had to suffer a loss of $1 billion in 2011 because of rising fuel costs and stiff competition from Asian and Middle Eastern carriers.