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- Travel company, Flight Centre (FLT) will stand down thousands of Australian staff as it tackles the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic
- The company announced 6000 staff globally, including 3800 Australian workers, will be stood down or be made redundant
- Just recently, the company closed down 100 underperforming stores
- This will now be doubled to more than 200, a total of 30 per cent of its 689 stores in Australia
- Before the crisis, Flight Centre was on track for record sales, which were up 11 per cent on last year.
- Flight Centre remains in a trading halt, with last trade at $9.91 per share
Travel company, Flight Centre (FLT) will stand down thousands of Australian staff as it tackles the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
The company announced 6000 staff globally, including 3800 Australian workers, will be stood down or be made redundant.
Just recently, the company closed down 100 underperforming stores. This will now be doubled to more than 200, a total of 30 per cent of its 689 stores in Australia.
The travel group said it has been hit by “never-seen-before” travel restrictions.
Flight Centre senior Executives and Board members have taken a 50 per cent pay reduction until at least the end of the financial year.
Managing Director Graham Turner says this virus is impacting everyone.
“People are effectively unable to travel in the near-term, either domestically or
internationally, and some are actually unable to be repatriated to their home countries, which is affecting thousands of people and is a problem that we’re working to help solve,” Graham said.
“As a result, we have been forced to make extremely difficult decisions, including temporarily standing down some of our people and cancelling our interim dividend, with a view to preserving more jobs for the future,” he added.
Flight Centre said the plan is to bring the employees that have been stood down back to work, once this pandemic is over.
“These people that we are temporarily standing down are a valuable part of our company and, where possible, we aim to bring them back to work as soon as restrictions are lifted and as demand starts to increase,” Graham explained.
Before the crisis, Flight Centre was on track for record sales, which were up 11 per cent on last year.
Flight Centre remains in a trading halt, with last trade at $9.91 per share.
