Air New Zealand announced a significant downsizing

Air New Zealand (NZ) plans to ground their fleet of Boeing 777s for a year, and as a result plan to cut nearly 1000 cabin crew jobs from its international fleet.

According to reports of Baaghi TV, this is to tackle what the airline is calling a ‘surplus’ of workers during the current travel downturn due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Air New Zealand’s long haul fleet currently consists of:

8 Boeing 777-200ERs
8 Boeing 777-300ERs
14 Boeing 787-9s

Despite getting access to NZD $900 million, Air NZ has been eyeing extensive downsizing in a bid to manage costs. Air NZ is looking to shrink by around 30% to maintain some level of financial health. The airline has outlined job cuts reducing the crew from 1,533 currently to a team of just 583.

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Air NZ trains their cabin crew to specific fleets so the 777 crews will be without work. According to reports, even the 787 crew will be reduced. According to reports, out of 671 Boeing-787 crews, 86 will be laid off (service managers role to be reduced from 157 to 142 while flight attendant roles to be reduced from 514 to 443).

Chief Revenue Officer of Air New Zealand also shared interesting stats about future bookings on his Twitter handle. The airline got one A320 worth of sales yesterday for the entire month of May travel, he said, yesterday.