More pain at Canada’s airlines.
Air Transat (TSX:TRZ) has announced that it is laying off half of its flight attendants and closing its base in Vancouver, British Columbia as a stopgap measure to conserve cash.
In total, Air Transat is furloughing 128 cabin crew workers, leaving only 117 flight attendants working for the month of November, down from more than 2,000 before the global pandemic. In total, the airline now has about 1,700 active employees, down from 5,100 before Covid-19.
The airline attributed its latest layoffs to a lack of improving prospects for the aviation industry amid Canada's border closures and a dearth of support programs from the federal government in Ottawa.
Transat is not the only company struggling. Air Canada (TSX:AC) and WestJet Airlines (T.WJA) combined have laid off or furloughed more than 30,000 employees since March as ridership has plummeted.
For Transat, the latest wave of temporary layoffs comes after all flight attendants were furloughed between April 1 and July 23, dropping the overall head count across the company to a low of 800 workers in May. Some employees have been receiving government wage subsidies while out of the active workforce, and some have been recalled only to be furloughed again.
The union representing the impacted aviation workers at Air Transat is organizing a protest on Parliament Hill on Tuesday (October 20), demanding government support, including rapid Covid-19 screening at Canadian airports.
