TunisAir to lay off 4,800 employees

Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - The CEO of the Tunisian airline company, TunisAir, Iléys Mnakbi, announced at the company's general meeting on Wednesday that 4,800 employees would be laid off to enable the company to recover financially.

TunisAir needs to limit its staff to 3,000 employees to restore its financial stability, he said, saying the salaries of the company's 7,800 workers are out of reach.

According to him, the company's fleet consists of 28 aircraft, or a rate of 280 employees per aircraft, against 80 workers per aircraft according to international criteria applied for this purpose.

The company has recorded significant financial losses since the events of 2011 because of the savage recruitment of hundreds of workers carried out at the time, boosting wage costs in addition to the loss of the Libyan market which represented about a quarter of TunisAir's business activity, Mnakbi explained.

Faced with these difficulties, experts have argued for privatizing the company to make it more competitive, but this recommendation is facing strong opposition from the country's trade union and political parties.

TunisAir celebrated its 71st anniversary on 21 October, 2019.

-0- PANA YY/IN/IS/MTA/VAO 9Jan2020